


Hyperion

by Malganis84



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Squadron Supreme, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24719086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malganis84/pseuds/Malganis84
Summary: The atomic hero of the modern age makes his debut! When Mark Milton encounters an alien machine as a child, he is transformed into an Eternal! Now as an adult he must choose how he will use his powers to help the world.





	1. Meteor

The two boys sit in front of a small television set, ignoring the threadbare carpet under their hands, the stench of stale beer and cigarettes in their noses, and focusing only on the roar of the crowd. The signal flickers but holds steady, displaying pro wrestlers battling for the championship belt. Garish gladiators clad in latex and leather, they are gods in the squared circle, and these boys are avid worshippers.

“C’mon, Axle…” Mark murmurs under his breath, staring in wide eyes as his working class hero struggled to get out of a punishing hold. Many nightly battles such as this had led to this moment, when all now seemed lost: Axle Torque had been betrayed by his closest friend, the Mechanic, right when victory was in their grasp. The Mechanic’s ambition wouldn’t let him settle for second best, and now he had his old friend dead to rights.

A warm hand clutches Mark’s shirt as his friend Emil shook him back and forth, neither breaking their gaze from the screen, “He’s gotta get out, he’s gotta!” Emil shouts with the vigor as only a young boy in the depths of hero worship can muster. 

“5… 4… 3…” The referee slams his hand down on the mat rhythmically as the world seems to slow down for the two boys. Then, with a mighty roar, Axle twisted until his hands and knees were braced against the mat, lifting himself and the Mechanic upwards with all of his might! The boys match Axle’s roar of triumph as he lifts his opponent bodily in the air, the Mechanic helpless in the iron grip of the gladiator below him. The crowd was screaming for vengeance, for justice, for Axle to right the wrong committed in the Mechanic’s betrayal! Axle nods as if he understands, taking the Mechanic to the edge of the ring… It will be an absolutely brutal move to throw his former friend bodily out of the ring and into the hard concrete below, fitting for a traitor. 

“I toldja he would get out of it! C’mon Axle!” Emil shouts with glee.

Mark watches with quiet wonder as his hero hesitates for a moment, the Mechanic wiggling in his hands to try and get free… Before the wrestler pivots on his feet, slamming the Mechanic down on the mat with enough force to shake the ref’s footing! The Mechanic groans, struggling to get up, but Axle straddles his chest, pinning him down to the mat.

“THIS WAS OUR DREAM!” Axle Torque shouts at the top of his lungs, a microphone almost magically appearing in his hand. “This was our dream… How could you, man? How could you do this to me?”

The arena goes from roaring fury to quiet reverie, listening to the hero’s words. Almost no one even notices the ref quietly counting out the pin.

“Didn’t we say it wouldn’t matter who got that belt, Bodie?” Axle addressed his foe by his real name, “Didn’t we agree it was about who was the biggest, the greatest, the strongest? How could you turn your back on that, man? I woulda shared it all with you, man - the money, the fame, the girls… But it wasn’t enough, was it?”

Axle’s eyes narrow judgmentally, “You had to have the  _ belt _ too.”

“3… 2… 1!” The ref calls the match, lifting Axle’s hand into the air as the hero stares dejectedly down at his former ally. The Mechanic couldn’t bring himself to look up and match Axle’s gaze, instead staring down at the mat.

The crowd goes wild and a voice calls out, “HE’S BATTLED HIS WAY THROUGH OVER A DOZEN OPPONENTS, BEEN LOCKED IN THE BRUTALEST CAGE MATCHES, BACKSTABBED BY HIS OWN BEST FRIEND! BUT HERE HE IS! LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, MAY WE PRESENT TO YOU THE 1989 WORLD WRESTLING LEAGUE CHAMPION, AXLE TORQUE!” 

The Champ tiredly gets to his feet as two buxom babes run up to put the belt in his hands. At his feet, the Mechanic slowly crawls away in shame, knowing that he had betrayed his closest friend and still failed to achieve his goal. Meanwhile, Mark and Emil screech in hysterics over the historic victory, hugging each other and staring at the screen while Axle presents his belt to the crowd, his beloved fans. 

“Emil?” His mother tiredly calls out from the kitchen, “Is the match over? I’ll call Mark’s parents, then. Better they be on their way ‘fore your pa gets home.” 

“Okaaay!” Emil shouts back while flopping on an old armchair, “Man, can you believe that match? I hope- I hope the Mechanic can be a good guy ag’in!” 

Mark nods, still staring at the TV screen while Axle stands on the corner of the ring, egging on the crowd. The boy wasn’t watching his hero, though, but quietly observing how the Mechanic pulls himself up and slips off the edge of the ring, slinking off in shame at his defeat.

“D’ya think they can be friends again?” Mark asks Emil.

“Mm, I dunno, Mark,” Emil shrugs in response, “If I were Axle y’know I’d wanna tan the Mechanic’s hide some more.”

Mark gets up and thoughtfully sits down on the accompanying armchair, “I guess so. It just seems kinda rough they had t’fight over the belt.” He thinks about this for a little while longer before calling out, “Hey Missus Burbank? Could I have another grape soda please?” The moral quandaries of eight year olds were easily dispelled by pressing material concerns. 

“No, hon, it’s past 9 PM. Your folks wouldn’t be happy if you were drinking soda this late. Y’can have some water if you’re thirsty, there’s a pitcher in the fridge.” Emil’s mom calls back. 

“‘Kaaay,” Mark replies, hopping up to get a drink, “Y’want anything, man?” 

“Nah,” Emil shakes his head, heading towards his bedroom. 

Mark wanders into the Burbank’s kitchen, walking past Mrs. Burbank as she smokes a hand-rolled cigarette that smells like the worst tobacco Mark ever encountered. Some mix of burning rubber and dead skunk. She hunches over the kitchen table, sitting in a haze of smoke, scribbling notes in the margins of newspaper articles. Mark had once read some of the notes she made, but found they didn’t make much sense at all: In an article about a water tower construction in the neighboring town, she wrote about how lizard people put fluoride in water. Emil didn’t like talking about his mom’s weird hobby and would change the subject whenever Mark raised it. 

Mark grabs a glass out of the cupboard, a novelty cup from the “Great Muppet Caper” series released by McDonald’s, and fills it with chilled water from the refrigerator, which contained little apart from old bottles of condiments, a jug of gin, a half-eaten casserole, and about two dozen cans of cheap beer from what Mark would reckon. With glass in hand, Mark heads back to Emil’s bedroom, where he finds his best friend quietly disassembling a toaster oven with practiced efficiency. Emil methodically pulls copper wiring out of the toaster’s heating element, discarding the tin outer shell in a box of scrap metal under his desk. 

“Whatcha workin’ on?” Mark asks curiously while sipping from his glass.

Emil opens a drawer on his desk and removes several bulky components, slotting them together and tightening some screws to hold them in place. 

“Well, it ain’t got a name yet. I was thinkin’ the Slag Cannon maybe,” he explains while wrapping the copper wire around a thin cylinder of metal. He takes a small hammer and nail, punching holes along the metal cylinder before slotting in several screws and bending the metal carefully with a pair of needle-nose pliers to hold them in place. 

“Slag?” Mark furrowed his brow, curious. It sounded like a word his dad would use when he jammed his toe on a table leg.

Emil nodded absently, not really paying attention to the question as he wrapped a sheet of pressed aluminum that had more holes matching the screws. The boy chewed on his lower lip as he fastened the outer casing in place with washers and bolts.

“It’s, uh…” Emil finally answers while reaching for a plastic tube on the far side of his desk, “Like melted metal, I guess?” He squeezes the tube as hard as he can, pushing a weird greyish goo into the space between the copper wire and the outer aluminum shell. 

“What’s that?” Mark peers over his friend’s shoulder.

“It’s silicon foam,” Emil strains as hard as he can to fill in all the gaps. “It’ll insulate the outer part from the coil of copper wire on the inside without starting a fire… I hope. I grabbed it out of the back of my Dad’s truck. It says heat-resistant right here…”

Mark holds the bottle up to the lamplight, inspecting it curiously before asking, “So what’s it supposed to do? Shoot melted metal?” 

“Sorta, yeah,” Emil affirms, pointing to a couple of loose copper wires hanging out of the silicone foam. “These are going to be tied to a bunch of batteries, which will heat up anything in the firing chamber because the electricity going through the circuit will heat up the metal. Once it’s heated up nice ‘n hot, a pressurized tank of air shoots it out at high speed. So not only is it gonna hurt like hell, it’ll cook anything it’s been shot into.” 

Mark follows along as best he can, though he didn’t really have a head for the finer details of Emil’s design. The Slag Cannon looked unwieldy and kind of junky, cobbled together from whatever scraps his friend could get. Emil grabs a couple D batteries out of his desk and places them next to the cannon while working on hooking up the copper wires to where the batteries would be placed. 

“...Why d’you need somethin’ like this, Emil?” Mark asks quietly, excited by the invention but confused by the implicit deadliness it posed. 

Emil grunts in response, but he stops working for a moment, “Because my pa is a mean son of a gun, Mark, y’know that. Feels like it’s about every day he comes home looking for somethin’ Maw or me did wrong and beats the living crap outta us for it.” He hefts the cannon, exhaling loudly, “This will make him think twice ‘fore he backhands my Momma again, that’s for sure.” 

Mark nods uncomfortably, walking away from the desk and sipping his water. He’d seen Mr. Burbank in some of his moods, but never for long before Emil or his mom quickly ushered Mark out the door and called his parents to take him home. 

“Where’d you learn to do this stuff, dude?” Mark asks, reflecting on some of the weird things he’d seen Emil cobble together out of junk and spare parts. His friend had built his own radio set, the lamp at his desk, and a failed small engine that doubled as a smoke machine. None of this was possible based on the education they were getting at their small elementary school in Cimarron. 

“Grandpa was an engineer, he left a buncha books behind after he died,” Emil mumbles, leaning back into his work, “I ain’t gonna be seen by my pa if he’s at home, so I tuck my head in here and read the books Grandpa left. Some of it is crazy amounts of math with letters and stuff I can’t even read, but some of it I can get m’head around.” 

Mark blinks in surprise, walking back over to the desk. “I wish I could do stuff like this…” He mumbles enviously, running his hand over the cannon. “Our tractor keeps breaking down all the time, drives my Dad crazy. If I could do this sorta thing, I could help him keep it fixed.”

Emil chuckles, but it doesn’t sound like he finds the situation all that funny. “You can sink three-pointers all day and hit home runs, Mark. Other kids talk to you at school.” He looks down at his work and picks up a screwdriver with a sigh, “...But if your pa needs a farmhand who’s handy with a screwdriver, tell him to call my mom,” He adds with a laugh, a real one.

“I don’t think he could hire you, mom says there’s laws about letting kids work,” Mark replies ruefully. 

Their conversation is interrupted as headlights flash across Emil’s bedroom window. The gearhead’s gaze narrows darkly as he rises from his desk, taking the cannon apart and hiding its disparate pieces in his desk. 

“Too soon for your folks to have gotten here, it’s probably my pa. You should wait outside, Mark,” Emil states flatly, guiding his friend out of the bedroom and to the front door. “Maw, you called Mark’s parents, right? Pa is home.” He calls to the kitchen.

“Oh… Yes, hon, I called his folks. They’ll be here in a li'l bit,” Mrs. Burbank confirms, putting out her hand rolled cigarette on the table. “You have a good night, Mark, glad you were able to come over!” 

“Yeah, thanks Mrs. Bee!” Mark hollers back as Emil guides him out the front door and into the yard. Two men were pulling Mr. Burbank out of a four-door sedan and helped him stumble over to the front door. 

Emil glowers at his father before turning to Mark with a tired smile. “I had fun, thanks for coming over.”

“Y-yeah! It was cool we got to see the championship!” Mark agrees, nervously tugging at his shirt. “I’ll see you at church on Sunday?” 

“Sure,” His friend nods, turning back to his front door as the two men came back and hopped into their car. “Seeya then.” 

“Yeah, seeya,” Mark remarks as he watches his friend head back into the house, disappearing behind the front door. Headlights flash over him as the sedan turns about, accelerating onto the road. Before long the roar of the engine dies in the distance, leaving Mark alone in the Burbank’s front yard with only the crickets to keep him company. There were no noises coming from inside the house, though he could see figures moving about inside, casting shadows as they passed in front of the light. 

Maybe tonight it wouldn’t be as bad, he muses to himself quietly. Mr. Burbank’s anger wasn’t always raging, Mark could remember. He was always sober and smiling on Easter and Christmas Eve at church, looking like just another member of the church. Some nights when Mr. Burbank came back from drinking with his buddies he just flopped in bed and fell asleep, Emil told him. It gave Mark a queasy feeling in his gut to sit and wait outside, but he would rather be out here than inside with the abusive drunk. The one time he had been caught in-doors, he narrowly avoided a lamp hitting his head that had been thrown at Emil’s mother. Mark’s parents were enraged when they heard about that little incident, and Mark had to beg to still be allowed over at the Burbank’s house. Usually Emil might come over to the Milton family farm, but it was not really easy for the Burbanks since they didn’t own a car - so every so often Mark came to the Burbank house instead. 

Mark sighs and flops to the ground, crossing his knees. Somewhere in the distance he hears the fluttering of wings and short, high-pitched squawks: a common occurrence that his dad taught him to recognize, it was just a common nighthawk in the search of prey. Mark watches the dark silhouette cross the night sky and eclipse the starry pinpoints in the deep black sky. His gaze lingers on the night sky when he sees the bright zip of a shooting star zip by.

“Whoa!” He says softly with a grin of delight. His mom told him that people made wishes on shooting stars… So Mark closes his eyes really tight and makes his wish. He opens his eyes slowly before he glances over his shoulder at the Burbank house… A moment of pause doesn’t tell him one way or another whether his wish came true. There weren’t any conspicuous noises coming from inside the house, no flickering movement of shadows against the light. All he could hear were crickets. Mark has little time to consider this before headlights wash over him again, his dad’s truck bouncing as it comes off the asphalt road. It stops short of where Mark sits and his mom hops out of the truck, calling his name.

“Mark, are they making you wait out here again?” She asks in exasperation, gently pulling him up from the ground, “I swear to Christ, I’ve told Emma a thousand times that I don’t want you sittin’ outside waiting for us.”

“It’s fine, mom,” Mark protests softly, following her back to the truck. “Mr. Burbank came home so it’s better for me to be out here.”

“Get in the truck,” She replies, shooting a poisonous look at the house while he crawls into the seat between her and his dad. 

Mark’s dad chuckles as the boy wriggles into place, helping his son get situated and buckled in, “Heya, kiddo. Did you have fun?”

The boy nods emphatically, “Mhmm! Axle won the championship! It was super cool, though it was also kinda sad…” 

“Oh?” His dad frowns, “Why was that?”

“Well,” Mark begins to explain as his mom clambers into the cab of the truck, “He beat Andy Avalanche pretty easily, which makes sense ‘cuz Andy only wins because he cheats, so against Axle that’s not even a fair fight for someone like that. But after he pinned Avalanche, the Mechanic showed up and tried to hit him upside the head with a chair!”

“That’s a pretty dirty move,” His dad remarks, his frown deepening in paternal care for his son’s interests. He spun the wheel around to turn the truck back onto the road, heading home at a fairly quick clip. “Weren’t those two supposed to be partners or somethin’?”

“Yeah, that’s why it was so awful…” Mark nods seriously, “The Mechanic said he didn’t wanna play second fiddle to Axle and that he was gonna get the belt for himself, it was even his idea to partner up with Avalanche instead! So they hadta duke it out over who was gonna get the belt. Axle didn’t seem too happy about winning, but it was still pretty cool that he did.”

His long-suffering mom speaks up, cutting through the wrestling talk. “Mrs. Burbank didn’t let you have too much soda, right?”

“She didn’t, I had a glass of water after the match was done.” Mark confirmed.

“Good,” She nods to herself, but her ornery mood persists. “I still don’t think he should be going over to their house, Al. We both know Nolan is a mean drunk, considering how many times Emma and Emil have come to church talking about all the door knobs they ran into on the way. Not to mention the fact that I just know Emma is smoking pot. She’s got to be the most scatterbrained woman this side of the Mississippi. I don’t think it’s safe for Mark to be going over there.”

“Hon, d’ya think this could wait ‘til the morning?” His dad murmurs in response, glancing at the boy sitting quietly between them. 

His mom’s waspish response is silenced and her lips draw a terse line in the moonlight. “Fine,” She grumbles back at her husband, “But don’t think you can put this conversation off forever, I’m tired of pretending like it’s okay for our son to be spending time over there-”

“ _ Hon _ .” He sighs tiredly. 

Mark sits uncomfortably between his two silent parents. He stares at his lap and ignores the nervous pitter patter of his heart. There were some things kids just weren’t equipped to understand, and tonight was full of them for the boy. A friend turning on a friend, a boy scared and angry at his pa, two parents sniping back and forth with their child stuck in between them. He just wants to go home, curl up in bed, and try to ignore these uncomfortable things. 

Bright fluorescent lights wash over his face as they pass a gas station secluded amongst the cornfields. It was an old brick building that Mark rarely went inside, with two garage bays for the station’s mechanic to perform car repairs. He could see a group of men sitting out on the curb just beyond the grimy glass door, smoking cigarettes and drinking from glass bottles. The sort of people that came by Mark’s house when the Fall season came to help harvest the corn. Glowing ashes fall from the tips of their cigarettes and drift to the concrete ground, mixing into the milieu of oil, dirt, and other residues left behind from decades of roadsters passing through the sleepy area. When the sun was high the heat would bake that concrete and release noxious smells of tar and chemicals that Mark couldn’t place.

The gas station vanishes into the dark horizon behind them, its glow quickly subsuming to darkness as it gets smaller and smaller in the background. The truck’s rumbling and jostling had a hypnotic effect on Mark. He tiredly closes his heavy eyelids, resting his head carefully against his mother’s shoulder. Mark’s excitement from earlier had ebbed away, leaving him sluggish and drowsy. His mother exhales softly through her nose, finally releasing her tension and reaching up to brush his thick copper locks from his forehead, running her fingers through them and feeling how loose curls wrapped gently around her knuckles. 

“...Heh, kid finally settling down?” Al remarks softly.

His mom brushes his hair fondly, “Yeah, he’s tuckered out, I reckon.”

They were quiet for a while after that, though for how long Mark wasn’t altogether sure as he faded in and out of fitful sleep. Finally his father spoke up, “I know things aren’t so great over there, Gemma. I just don’t want for him to grow up too fast, that’s all. There’s enough problems he’s gonna have to face ‘fore he grows up, I don’t want to give him another.”

“...I know, Al…” His mom replies softly. Her breath was warm on the top of Mark’s head, maybe only a few inches away. 

“He doesn’t know about… Y’know. He doesn't know about the farm. That’s gonna be hard enough for him to handle. He doesn’t need to carry his friend’s problems as well. I just wanna spare him a little pain, that’s all.” Al sighs softly. 

“...Al-” Gemma responds in a strangled voice.

His father reaches across Mark to squeeze her shoulder, “It’ll be okay, Gem, we’ll figure it out-”

“AL, LOOK OUT!” She screams in response, jolting Mark awake in time to see a flash of light crossing their path as his father swore a blue streak. A noise unlike any Mark had heard before ripped through his ears, a combination of metal tearing, earth being turned asunder violently, and an almost musical tone that set Mark’s deepest, most primitive instincts on edge. 

The truck jerks and wobbles as Mark’s dad struggles to get the vehicle under control, the boy barely able to see what was going on before the vehicle pitches forward with a sudden jerk! He vaguely registers the sound of glass shattering and his world spinning end over end before erupting into stars and darkness with the sound of a scream and a sudden thud.

When Mark was finally able to open his eyes, he could barely breathe or think from the pounding inside his head. His entire body registers pain, but his head hurts the worst by far. Blurry vision focuses on a dancing light - a flame flickering in the air beyond the shattered windshield… No, it was on the ground. He was hanging upside down, suspended in place by his seatbelt. Beside him his parents hung similarly from their seats, bleeding from a dozen cuts gouged by the shattered glass. Mark carefully reaches up and nudges his mom, who groans in pain but doesn’t rouse from unconsciousness.

“Mom…?” Mark whispers hoarsely. His throat burned and he could barely speak. He turns and looks at his dad, who was bleeding from a particularly nasty gash on his forehead right above the eyebrow. “...Dad…?” He tries to reach up to nudge his father with his other hand, but makes a choked squeak of pain as it fails to respond to his command. Mark takes a closer look at his hurting left arm and finds it to be oddly limp and twisted… A bruised lump protrudes from his wrist.

“...Is there anyone there…?” Mark bellows, but the only answer is the crackling of flame and the noise from the damaged engine. “...Hello?! Is there anyone… Anyone at all?! Help us! Please!” 

But there is no one there. Bitter tears sting Mark’s eyes and his nose fills up with snot as he whimpers upside down. With no one coming and his parents unconscious and possibly seriously injured, the boy did the only thing left that he could think to do: Reaching up with his good hand, he unbuckles his seatbelt and falls out of his seat, slamming into the ceiling of the truck. 

A flash of pain so intense that Mark can’t even think to scream shoots up his broken left arm, followed by the metallic scent of blood. Gathering himself as best as he could, Mark rolled onto his knees and surveyed the damage. The sudden fall had caused the lump protruding at his wrist to rupture, a fragment of bone poking through the skin and dribbling blood onto the aluminum ceiling of the car. Overcome by the sudden equilibrium, the pain, and horror Mark doubles over and vomits onto his lap. Sniffling and crying, the boy crawls out of the truck’s cab and onto the dirt, slicing his palms on broken shards of glass hidden in the black soil. The dirt radiates ambient heat upwards like it had been baking in the summer sun, almost burning the skin of Mark’s hands and knees as he crawls further from the truck. 

He pulls himself to his feet, looking around and getting his bearings. The Milton family’s truck had fallen into a massive trench cut straight through the road. Mark wasn’t too familiar with judging lengths and distances, but he knew the trench was deep… It was about as deep as their house was tall as far as he could reckon. Small tongues of flame dotted the long trench, almost like runway lights that Mark had seen at the small local airport. Spinning slowly, he saw the trench span in either direction, but saw that not far away there was an odd metallic object half-buried in the dirt. Mark clutches his upper arm to keep the broken limb from swaying too much and staggers over towards the half-buried object, astounded by its bizarre design. It was difficult to see, but the hull of the object was stained a blazing scarlet with bright golden accents… But when he shifts his gaze, the red turns blacker than black, the gold becoming a bright electric yellow that burns his eyes. It appeared to be a teardrop-shaped structure, with multiple arcing bands interspersed across the hull in no particular pattern. It was emblazoned with glowing circles connected by zig-zagging lines, embraced by geometric octagons and decagons. As Mark got closer to the glowing structure, the tip of the teardrop lowered and it began to float, pulling itself out from under the debris and rising until it balanced on that needle-point tip, hovering over Mark.

A thin white line stretches around the circumference of the structure, growing broader as it begins to open up, the bulbous top separating into four segments and rising to draw out machinery from within the pointed bottom half. The innards of the structure glow with a ghostly green light, so bright that Mark could barely see. He thought about running away, but the bizarre melodic tone he had heard before at the crash kept him rooted to the spot. 

“...Mark!” He hears his father’s voice cry out from behind him. The boy slowly glances over his shoulder, seeing his dad crawling across the dirt from the truck. His mother was awake as well, trying to get out of the truck as she stared at the awesome, terrifying sight before her.

“Dad?” Mark asks in dumbfounded terror. A movement in the edge of his vision draws his eye back to the machine, which opens to its greatest extent. A deep resounding gong fills the air as a beam of light shines onto Mark, drawing him into the air. 

“MARK!  _ MARK _ !” Al struggles to his feet, pelting across the trench to reach his son as the light begins to draw Mark into the machine. His father trips over a rock, slamming into the dirt, but Al is undeterred as he pushes up again. 

Mark is drawn into the heart of the machine, bathed in warm glowing light for a moment before the hull begins to close around him. He chances one last glance at his father, who is too far away to help.

“MARK! MARK! NO! NOT MY BOY!  _ MARK _ ! PLEASE, ANYONE, NOT MY BOY!” Al screams hoarsely, helplessly, as the machine closes around Mark and cuts him off from the outside world. 

Inside the machine, Mark hangs in the gentle green light, warmed by it. He cannot hear his father’s screams outside, he cannot hear anything apart from the melodic hum of the machine that tells the animalistic instinct inside Mark’s head that he is about to die. Caught like a deer in the headlights or a moth before a flame, Mark can only be drawn closer to the light. 

“I want my momma… I want my daddy...” He whispers, barely audible even to himself above the noise inside the machine. If it understands him, if it even sympathizes, he cannot tell. A sizzling crackle echoes inside the machine, and Mark looks down to see his clothes being burned away by the light. Naked and exposed, the blood, dirt, and vomit on his skin are next to be burned away, filling his nose with the scent of ozone. The final horror begins as the melodic tone raises in pitch and Mark looks down to see his fingers melting into a clear, oozing liquid. The skin and flesh separate easily from the bone, the blood losing its crimson hue as it drips to the floor, leaving behind bones that unravel into filaments like pulling a loose string out of a sweater. Mark knew he should be screaming, but he was beyond such crude expressions of pain and terror. The transparent, gelatinous goo dropped from his unravelling bones and splattered on the floor of the machine. Bit by bit he was reduced to only a few stumps on a torso, his head already beginning to fall apart around his consciousness. Darkness overtook him as he finally dissolved away into nothingness.

The silence that follows is like the silence of sleep. Mark remembers nothing but vague impressions, lights and colors, voices speaking imperceptible words that he couldn’t understand. The only tangible image he could fix on found him standing in the endless black void, six gigantic glowing eyes staring down at him. 

_ And then there was light, the next day. _

Mark erupts from the dormant machine, pulling himself out of a pool of brackish slime and gasping for air as the stinging light of day scorches his unprepared eyes. As he steadies himself against the side of the machine, hands grasp him by the arms and shoulders and drag him bodily out of the pool. His eyes and ears have not adjusted to the sensory input, but he sputters in protest, trying to protect his damaged arm.

“...What?” Mark feels for the broken bone, but it isn’t there. Wiping slime from his eyes, he sees his parent’s tearful faces as they clutch him to them, sobbing in relief that they got their son back from the alien machine. But despite this… Mark can barely feel their bodies against him. They feel almost weightless, ephemeral. 

He inhales a deep breath, leaning back from his parents and easily parting from their grasp. They stare at him worriedly, saying things that he can’t seem to hear. Mark concentrates on their mouths before finally registering what they’re saying.

“Mark? Mark, honey, are you okay?” His mom asks, clutching his neck to keep him from retreating further.

His father looks past him, at the alien machine that had abducted the boy. It had stopped glowing hours ago and had settled onto the ground, quietly humming as something happened to Al’s son inside. “What… What happened to you in there, son?” 

Mark’s blue eyes bore into his father for a moment, as if seeing right through Al. He was quiet for a moment before answering, “I don’t know. I can’t remember. It was just… Dark,” Mark lied.

  
  
  
  



	2. Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 17 years later, Mark Milton lives a life of quiet desperation.

“Hello, and welcome to Burbank Industry’s new Enhanced Facility Protection Guidelines! Please follow along in your pamphlets as I fill you in on all the details you need to know about the company’s new, exciting policies.” A perky young woman wearing a professional blouse and skirt flits across the television screen, her beaming smile almost as sparkly as her personality. It didn’t match the venue for the day’s show, though. A dozen tired security guards sit in three rows in front of the aging flat-screen TV, trying their best to pay attention and follow along with the video as the first hints of daylight begin to peek through the shuttered window of the conference room. 

Mark Milton exhales through his nose, stretching his legs out and leaning back to stare at the exposed industrial ceiling, letting his mind wander. Even though it was the end of a graveyard shift, he wasn’t tired, just bored. He could think of a few things better to do than sit in the cramped conference room with his coworkers listening to another boring training video from corporate. 

A wadded up ball of paper smacks into Mark’s nose, snapping his attention back to the present. His boss, Eric, poked his pen sternly in his subordinate’s direction. “Don’t let me catch you dozing off again. I’ve gotta sign off on you jackasses watching this whole thing, and don’t think I won’t keep you over to make sure you know this training backwards and forwards.”

Suppressing a waspish reply, Mark instead turns his head back to the training video. At least he was being paid for this, he was willing to admit, and it wasn’t like the woman in the video wasn’t easy on the eyes. Even then, he still can’t suppress the smallest twinge of irritation… He wasn’t dozing off, after all. He wasn’t tired at all. Mark didn’t get tired.

The woman continues with her tour of the new training, her smile never wavering, “-The newly implemented security measures are intended to protect Burbank Industry and its stockholders’ most valuable assets, preventing sabotage, product loss, and corporate espionage. Rigorous background checks will be instituted for all new employees to ensure there are no breaches in security. State of the art biometric locks will be placed on all entrances and exits to a facility, accompanied by a 16-digit passcode unique to each employee.”

Mark frowns from beneath his cap. The company had been in the news recently following a rash of break-ins at other facilities across the country. The higher-ups and stockholders were none too pleased about the potential of negative press and the chance of share prices dropping at the market. He doubted that the big man in charge cared all too much about stock prices, but the idea of having carefully cultivated technology stolen by a competitor? That was not going to fly. Made sense that he’d call in the big dogs.

Still, a 16-digit passcode was a bit excessive.

The training continues, “Now, if you happen to identify an intruder in your industrial campus, don’t be alarmed. Take a deep breath, relax, and keep a cool head. For these situations, we’ve developed the ALFA protocol. What does ALFA mean?”

The actress steps over to a situation where a security guard ducks behind a crate to spy on a rather cartoonishly obvious thief: black ski mask, gloves, the whole nine yards. “The first step is to Assess the Situation. Is the intruder armed? Are there any personnel at risk nearby? Where are the nearest entrances and exits?” As she explains this, the security guard follows the intruder at a distance, not confronting the masked man. “A Low Profile is Key. Follow the intruder at a distance if they’re on the move, but don’t behave aggressively. If you think you might be in danger, stay put.” 

After following the crook a few yards, the guard then backs off to a safer location, “Fall Back when you have gotten all the necessary information. When you’ve done all you can, Alert the Critical Response Team,” The guard pulls out a radio and describes the situation. The footage cuts to a group of black-uniformed security guards with red badges on their chests jumping to attention in another location, “These are highly trained, qualified professionals for handling these sorts of delicate situations. They’ll be the ones to determine whether or not the intruder needs to be directly confronted, allowed to leave the campus, and whether police response is necessary.”

A pleasant sounding tune begins to play as the woman is flanked by the Critical Response Team actors, “If you encounter an intruder, remember ALFA: Assess, Low Profile, Fall Back, and Alert. Take this time now to meet the newest members of the Burbank family, your local CR team!”

As the video fades to black, Eric hops up to open the conference door, allowing in six men in the intimidating black uniforms who stride in and line up in single file, towering imposingly over the gathered security guards. Mark raises an eyebrow at the assembled group… Not a single one had to be under six feet tall, all of them poised and ready for action. This response was a bit dramatic. Before the manager can say anything, one of the uniformed CRT members clears his throat and addresses them.

“I’m Evan Shawshank, head of the Cimarron Shipment Plant Critical Response Team. I look forward to working with every one of you. As the corporate training video just outlined, our expectations for you are minimal: no one wants to see any of you get hurt or worse. You’re our most important asset here, our eyes and ears to help ensure we catch the bad guys.” He pauses for a moment before nodding to punctuate his sentence. “You’ve all worked hard tonight, I’m sure you’re tired, so we won’t take up any more of your time. Get some rest, you’ve certainly earned it.” Shawshank turns on his heel and escorts his team out of the room, a nonverbal dismissal that overrides any attempt Eric could make to keep them in their seats for further debriefing. 

“Goddamn, those guys were jacked as hell,” One of Mark’s coworkers murmurs, “Are we sure we didn’t get the Navy Seals assigned here by accident?” 

Mark pulls off his cap and runs a hand through his sweaty copper locks. “Better them than us, I’d say,” He responds with a shrug while quickly escaping through the door. He pauses for only a moment to glance at the Critical Response Team, who were departing in a loose pentagon formation with Shawshank at the tip. He didn’t have much interest in them, though, and quickly departs to pick up his few belongings from the employee locker room. As he heads out from the main shipping center to the employee parking lot, he fishes out his phone and stares at the screen before firing off a text.

Hey

There’s no response for a few minutes and he shrugs and pockets his phone while heading to his car. The beat-up old truck had seen better days, and even though its side view mirrors and windshield had been replaced, it still bore the scars of its tumble into the ravine all those years ago. A large dent in the hood and scoring on the red paint job were a small visual reminder for Mark that everything that happened that night had really happened… Though they weren’t the only reminders by any stretch of his imagination. He hops into the cab of the truck, reaching around to push his keys into the ignition when his phone buzzes in his pocket. 

What’s up? Busty rn, talk fast

*Busy

lol 

“Pfft,” Mark chuckles tiredly at the typo and hasty attempt to cover up for it.

Who called the goon squad?

Was that today? You gotta do what you gotta do, my friend.

Can’t afford a board mutiny rn

Gotta go, speak of the devils. Ttyl

Yeah sure,cya

Mark exhales slowly, putting his phone aside and sliding the keys into the ignition. A board meeting this early in the morning meant things were not going well at corporate. As he pulls out of the lot and heads home, Mark suppresses a twinge of worry.

Emil was going to be fine. He could handle… This, whatever  _ this _ was.

He was the smart one, anyhow. Mark wasn’t equipped for the world that Emil operates in, and he frankly didn’t really envy his friend’s fortune and success. He is more than happy to patrol the Cimarron shipping plant on the night shift, tucked out of sight and out of mind. Emil had more than once offered Mark something with more responsibility, more authority, but Mark had always turned him down. Emil never understood why Mark was happy living in perpetual obscurity in the middle of Kansas, and Mark never explained why he was really intent on staying behind when Emil had gone off to rule the multinational company from his roost in Cosmopolis. 

It is better that Emil doesn’t know. That nobody knows the secrets Mark Milton hides from the world. Nobody else had ever discovered the truth of what arrived in the sleepy town that night seventeen years ago, a secret Mark’s parents had made sure was buried. The world would never understand, they honestly were never sure they truly understood it either. The riddle of that night would become an obsession with a heavy toll. Mark had mostly tried not to think about it. 

_ There is no love greater than to lay down one's life for one's brother. _

Mark drives past the old gas station, now accompanied by a wooden road-side stand that advertises all manner of meteor rocks for sale. Most of them were fakes, Mark had determined a long time ago, with a few of the real articles hidden amongst them. He wasn’t exactly sure how he knew they were real meteor rocks from that night, something about them just seemed…  _ Different _ . Sure, he had an advantage over the average tourist coming in from who-knew-where, but he couldn’t really explain the differences. It’s not like he was a xenogeologist, if that’s what you would call someone who studied space rocks. He wasn’t exactly a linguist either, he hadn’t even bothered going to college. No point getting learned if he was trying to keep his head down.

No point to doing much of anything except going to work and going home. He passes over the gorge left behind by the ship that had landed on top of them, a wound in the Earth that hadn’t healed after all that time. A small bridge had been built to rebuild the road, an easy landmark to measure against for how close he was to home. Before long he passes by the old family farm and arrives at the small trailer park he calls home, pulling the truck up behind  _ la casa móvil Milton. _

“Morning, ma,” Mark says gruffly as he enters the small trailer, his nose picking up a rather sickly wave of cheap pot. “Getting started early, huh?” He mutters as he looks through the mail tossed casually aside onto the counter. His mother was sitting behind a small plastic table bolted to the floor, staring out the murky window while smoking a joint and sipping from a cup of black coffee spiked with whiskey. If she notices his presence, she gives no sign of it. Lost in her own little world. “Good talk,” He sighs, putting the mail back on the counter. It had to be nice to escape like she did, and he had to admit part of his frustration was knowing that it would probably take an entire warehouse of Jim Beam and Jamaica’s finest product to maybe get him buzzed.

_ Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more. _

Mark rolls his eyes and stomps to the other end of the trailer, slamming the door behind him so he can strip down and take a shower. He didn’t really need to shower, he wasn’t getting terribly grimy at his job and he didn’t sweat, but it was a relaxing way to cap off a shift before he got on with the rest of his day. When you had a full twenty-four hours available to you, you had to come up with creative ways to keep busy. Stepping out of his discarded pants, he reaches into the cramped shower stall and sets the dial to a blast of scalding hot water, as hot as it could possibly go. A normal person might find this extremely uncomfortable, but it was quite relaxing for Mark. Steam swirls around him as he steps under the hot blast, a groan of satisfaction spilling outward as he allows himself to relax. If he was being honest, he would actually prefer it if it was even hotter, but he hadn’t figured out how to make that happen yet.

“Emil would know how,” He chuckles to himself, inhaling the steam with gusto. His old friend’s wizardry with technology had propelled him to heights that the two Cimarron natives could never have dreamed of when they were children. Emil founded and controlled his own technology company that worked in developing hardware and software for the computing industry, though ironically the highest percentage of revenue came from a smartphone game called  _ Sweet Sweep _ . It was simple, addictive, and the tiny microtransaction costs proved to be extremely lucrative as millions upon millions of players lost track of how much money they’d spent on powerups and other advantages. Emil is loath to admit such a simple thing was his crown jewel, but at least he could claim credit for designing and programming it. 

His drifting thoughts are disrupted by a nasally voice breaking through the trance, “No, I ain’t got your money, give me another two days!”

Mark jerks his head back at the interruption, looking around for a moment before realizing he had relaxed a little too much. It took a lot of concentration at first to get control over his out-of-control senses, but after a while it had become second nature to keep them in check. However, his attention could lapse enough that he’d accidentally find himself staring at a nervous system walking around, or overhear conversations a couple miles away. He grumbles a little to himself, pushing his head under the jet of steaming water and putting his shields back up to avoid another interruption. He’s more than happy keeping the outside world  _ out _ .

* * *

Fully dressed in a fresh change of clothes, Mark steps back into the small kitchenette close to the door, finding his mother more lucid and washing out the coffee pot. “That young thing, Amy, came calling for you last night,” She comments tonelessly, not looking at her son. “Seems she wants a piece of what you got to offer.”

“I ain’t got anything to offer her.” Mark replies gruffly, stepping past his mother and pulling a box of cupcakes off the top of the fridge. 

“Doesn’t stop her from coming to see if she can get it anyhow,” His mom says with a muted chuckle. 

Mark chews on one of the cupcakes before shaking his head, “I’d probably break her in half. If she had any idea what she was doing, she’d steer well clear.”

“Well she won’t know if no one tells her,” Gemma shrugs. 

“You know why I can’t do that.” Mark says quietly, not making eye contact with his mom. 

His mother sighs, reaching out hesitantly to touch his back. “Can’t live in the past forever, baby boy. You… You couldn’t know what to do. You were only a kid. It ain’t wrong to want something, Mark.”

_ It is not good for man to be alone _ .

“SHUT  _ UP _ !” Mark roars, slapping the side of his head violently. His mother recoils in terror, cowering against the wall. She doesn’t bother to hold up her hands to defend herself - it wouldn’t do any good if Mark really meant to hurt her. He turns to face his mother, his anger draining quickly as he sees the terror in her hollow eyes. “...S-sorry.” He massages his shaking hand before pointing at his forehead. “It’s… It’s just… You know. Wasn’t you.”

“...Oh.” Gemma nods slowly, relaxing only a little. She was already gone, reaching into her bedrobe and pulling another joint out as well as her lighter. She tries desperately to get the lighter to burn, but her shaking hands make it almost impossible to get more than errant sparks. 

Mark sighs and reaches out to cover her hands. “It’s… Let me. I’ll handle it.” He pulls the joint out of her hands and turns away from her. Holding the hand-wrapped weed in front of him, he feels a warm flush cross over his face before a quick flash of light ignites the tip of the joint. He gently hands it back to his mother, who transfers it quickly to her lips to take a long drag. Mark is downcast for a moment before stepping to the door, heading outside.

“I’ll be back in a bit. Sorry again, I’ll… See if I can sort this out.” He says softly, closing the door behind him before his mother can reply. Walking out beyond the edge of the trailer park and into the tall stalks of the adjacent cornfield, Mark feels the power well up inside his body at his bidding, channeled into unstoppable force. He disappears from sight, racing through the corn fields faster than an average person could follow. Faster than any Olympian, faster than any land animal. He had never clocked his land speed, but he figured he had to be going over 100 miles per hour. It was refreshing to stretch his legs like this, to exert the alien power that dwells naturally within the deepest part of his body, mind, and soul. 

He leaves Cimarron behind, heading south out into open wilderness where no one lived. He knew the way, his father had made him memorize it when he was young… And in an empty field that stretched for miles in any direction, flat and covered with stalks of hay swaying in the wind, he found what he was looking for… No one would ever know what was truly here, buried beneath the dirt, but he could see it plain as day even through twelve solid feet of earth.   
“What do you want?” He asks the alien ship sharply. “You’re being extra… _Chatty_ today.”

The answer comes from within his own mind, but he knows its true origin is below his feet. Even miles away, it spoke to him and him alone with clarity that made it feel it was always just a few feet away.  _ Take heed, o son of the cosmos; bear witness, o child of eternity. _

“I’m here, I’m listening, what do you  _ want _ ?” Mark asks again, angry at the cryptic response.

_ The time of trials is almost upon us. When the son of the cosmos will leave his home and family. _

Mark laughs harshly, “Oh no, I’m not going anywhere.” He jabs his finger down to the ground. “I’m living a quiet, normal life. I’m… I’m content with my life. I never wanted anything to do with you.”

_ Come and see, and I saw, and beheld: the terror in that last offered cup. _

“...What the hell does that even mean?!” Mark shouts in confusion. 

_ The Road to Tar-Sharshalan is long, but it will not go the way you desire, o child of eternity. _

Mark stares at the ground for a long moment before laughing incredulously. “I have no goddamn clue what it is you’re trying to say, but if you don’t shut up and stay out of my head I will dig you up out of the ground and throw you into the sun, you hunk of junk. And you know I could do it, you made me that way.”

_ I knew thee in my womb, Eternal I made thee. I put the cup to your lips. You supped on the Milky Way, the starstuff was your nourishment. Young son of the cosmos, your destiny was written long ago. _

“I DON’T  _ WANT _ THAT DESTINY!” Mark roars, his temper flaring and fire springing to his sight. Before he can even react, a swath of fire springs up in the field, tongues of flame licking at the stalks of hay and spreading fast.

Mark blanches in embarrassment and panic as the roiling smoke rises around him. “...Oh shit,” He breathes, trying to figure out how to calm down the wildfire he’s accidentally started. His clothes catch fire as well, turning to burnt strips that drift off his body. Licking his lips thoughtfully, he takes a deep, deep breath… And unleashes it in a powerful gust, flattening the field around him with arctic temperatures and billowing gales until the fire is put out. 

Too bad his clothes didn’t survive the temper tantrum. He sighs in frustration, picking a toasted scrap off his shoulder before staring sullenly at the silent ship buried beneath his feet. He couldn’t see the point in making another waspish reply, instead launching himself forward with his super-speed and returning to Cimarron. At least he had been able to contain the wildfire before it had spread too far out of control.

* * *

Mark sits in a lawn chair atop his mobile home with his grandfather’s pipe propped in his mouth, absently chewing on the hardwood as the acrid, biting flavor of cherry, vanilla, and tobacco danced across his taste buds. He had cultivated a handful of hobbies to keep his days interesting when he didn’t have to work - sure, he could sleep if he really felt like it, but he didn’t really require sleep except for once every week or so. The longest he’d stayed up consecutively was a few months, and things had started to get  _ weird _ by the time he decided he should probably get some sleep. Eight hours later he had woken up refreshed and back to normal. His night shift job kept up the illusion that he was a normal person, and he made sure to avoid his coworkers outside of the plant to make sure they didn’t get any ideas about his routines. 

His current preferred hobby was a rather esoteric one: while it appears that he’s only spending hours smoking his pipe and watching the world go by, maybe taking a long nap in the noon sun, he was actually trying to get a sense for the meteorological systems around his home. He’d begun to sense in advance when weather was on its way, but it was usually only in advance of six or seven hours. He was curious if he could begin to observe the weather patterns with his enhanced senses and begin to detect and predict weather days out from when it would happen. It was a surprisingly enjoyable hobby, very Zen as Emil would put it. He wasn’t terribly book smart, but he could get a sense for the connections between what he felt and what he could reason was coming. It took a lot of time and concentration too, which was about the perfect activity Mark could think of to help him pass the long, boring hours. Staving off boredom was likely his highest day-to-day concern. 

He was distracted as his phone buzzed insistently, a text from Emil popping up unexpectedly. Mark plucks the pipe out of his mouth, pulling up Emil’s text to see what his friend wants to talk about:

Sorry for blowing you off earlier

We all good?

No problem, idgaf. You’re busier than me lol.

Cool, well you’re my boy, don’t wanna leave you hanging

You all good with the new response guys? You seemed worried

Nah, just curious. I know you gotta sort shit out.

Ugh, yeah. Idk why we’re getting hit, dude. 

We sell circuit boards and processor chips, nothing sexy.

It’s all stuff other geniuses buy to make their stuff.

Could be a competitor trying to sabotage the business?

idk , there’s been three break-ins and no signs of sabotage, unless the break-ins and the bad press are the sabotage

Yeah

I’m just a gearhead lol I leave this James Bond shit tot he professionals

These new guys scared the shit out of half my team lol 

I think any intruders will think twice after seeing them

They’d think twice after seeing you, dude, you’re built like a brick wall

I keep telling you, you should join my security staff here in Cosmopolis.

You’re about the only guy I know I can really trust

I’m allergic to big city assholes lol

I’ll bring you some benadryl next time I’m in town then, lmao

Shouldn’t you be asleep rn dude? Wasn’t expecting you to respond immediately

Yeaaaaah… Mom was drunk and knocked the tv over, woke me up

She still drinking and shit?

Yeah

I’m sorry, bro

I know what that’s like

I’ll get out of your hair. Get some sleep. 

Think about that job offer lol

  
  


Lol i’ll do that

  
  


Mark stares at the phone for a moment before pocketing it. He feels bad for a moment for lying to his best friend… But not for long. Burying those sorts of feelings had gotten easier and easier over the years.

Besides, he would rather watch the clouds.


	3. Menace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Mark is questioned about his destiny, a new path is opened.

After a couple days, Mark had totally forgotten that he should even feel bad about something. The long hours of his life lend themselves well to putting things into the past to be forgotten in no time at all. Mark and his mother sit in the trailer, quietly picking at some microwave dinners while some cop drama plays in the background. Food is another nonessential element of his life, a remnant left over from childhood that still clings to out of a vague sense of nostalgia… And he still enjoys the flavor and texture of food, so while it isn’t nourishing to his body he still views it as a creature comfort, something to break up the monotony.  
“Hmmmmm…” Gemma leans back in her seat and stretches her arms overhead, her eyes screwed shut as she unwinds her muscles. “What time d’ya go to work, hon?”  
Mark glances up from a bite of salty beefsteak before chomping down on it. He’d learned to be careful when taking bites, as he was liable to bite straight through the tines of a fork and not notice the difference. “About 8 PM, why?” He replies.  
Gemma sits up from the table, grabbing her purse off the counter and checking inside for her wallet, phone, keys, lighters, and other accoutrements. “We’re going for a drive,” She says with an authority he hadn’t heard in over a year. Normally she just burned away her days smoking and drinking, a downward spiral that’d been ongoing since his father had passed away.  
“We are?” He responds quizzically.  
“Sure, the Crooked Leg in town is having a three dollar beer night, with cheap apps and cocktails during happy hour,” His mom responds nonchalantly. “Time we lived a little, wouldn’t you say?”  
Mark adopts a deadpan expression, “I have work, how are you going to get home?” He asks.  
“I’ll just use my womanly wiles to find my way home, I suppose.” She says with a shrug, opening the door and gesturing for him to follow along.  
Mark bristles a little at that comment, shaking his head. “I don’t think you’ll find Pepe le Pew at the bar, he’s about the only one who could stand the smell.”  
His mother smacks him across the head with her purse, an impact he barely even registers. “Don’t you talk like that to me, baby boy! Just because you’re a miserable cuss doesn’t give you the right to talk to me that way.” Her pale eyes bore into him even though she stood a head and a half shorter than him. “We’ve both been burrowed deep in this home for years, and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of watching you waste your life in here, so we’re going to the bar, we’re gonna get some drinks, and we’re gonna meet some folks!”  
Mark met his mother’s cold fury with a sullen gaze. This isn’t new, just occurs less and less as the years went by. Sometimes she’d be roused from her stupor to try and reclaim the life slipping away from her hands, but it wouldn’t be very long that she’d be back in the same old rut.  
“I ain’t some kid you can boss around, either.” He says in a low voice, trying to control his frustration. “I’ve been taking care of this place for a while now while you drank and smoked and hid from the world. You don’t get to just… Decide we’re going to be alright one day and everything goes the way you want, ma.”  
Gemma sighs and steps out the threshold, walking to the truck. “Are you giving me a ride to town or am I hitch-hiking, Mark?” She responds coldly.  
“...” Mark sighs and grabs his keys. “Get in the damn truck, I’ll change into my uniform and I’ll be out in a minute.”  
***  
The drive to the Crooked Leg was stony and silent, mother and son having no words to exchange after their argument. When they arrived at the bar it was populated by folks coming from the shipping plant, just getting off their shifts and seeking to drown the tedium in malty golden beer. Mark paused behind the wheel of the truck as his mom hopped out wordlessly, heading into the bar. He didn’t have to be at work for an hour, and it wasn’t a long drive from the bar to the plant. He could go into the bar after his mom, but what was the point? He couldn’t get drunk and didn’t particularly like the taste of alcohol. He had no one to socialize with, he didn’t even know what to do to pass the time in that sort of establishment.  
But the alternative was an hour alone with his thoughts, with the real reason he had stayed in Cimarron for so long. As pathetic as she was, when his mother was stoned out of her mind she wasn’t dredging up painful memories. He could just drift through life without having to think about it. But now she’d ripped the bandaid off and left him to deal with it. Alone with his thoughts for an hour.  
“…” Mark sighs.  
He steps through the front door of the bar, instantly bombarded by country rock, the smell of tobacco and beer, and the presence of a few dozen sweaty, buzzed Cimarron natives having fun and trying to get drunk, laid, or both. His mom was lost somewhere in the crowd, and he didn’t really care enough to pinpoint her location. It’s not like she actually gave a damn about him either. They’re just prisoners stuck in the same cage, derelicts swirling around the same drain. He shoulders his way through the crowd to get to the bar, a pretty easy feat considering his comparative size and build.  
“Hey man, what’ll it be?” The bartender says, a guy around Mark’s age with a hipster haircut and a thin mustache.  
Mark surveys the bottles of liquor behind the bartender for a moment before shrugging, “How much for a pitcher of gin?”  
“That’ll be 20 bucks, my man,” The bartender pulls down a bottle and empties it out into a plastic pitcher, handing it to Mark who exchanges it with a 20 dollar bill. “Oh, can’t forget the glass-” The bartender pushes a couple shot glasses to Mark, but blanches when he looks up at the security guard. Mark simply grabs the pitcher by the handle and chugs the contents down, suppressing his disgust at the flavor, which was a very generous word for the swill in his opinion. A small pocket of people around Mark stop in stunned silence as he continues to drink the entire pitcher down to the last drop. He holds it out to inspect the contents and then releases a loud belch before setting it down on the bar.  
“...Would you like a refill?” The bartender asks in shock.  
Mark clears his throat awkwardly, aware of the people staring at him. “I think I’ll pass, to be honest,” he remarks with a subdued laugh. “I don’t think gin is for me, actually.” Mark quickly turns away from the bar, trying to suppress his feelings of embarrassment while looking for where his mother went. He didn’t even feel the slightest twinge of intoxication from drinking that much gin at once, though he honestly wasn’t sure what being drunk was supposed to feel like. Judging from people’s reactions he’d observed, you were supposed to get either really friendly or really pissed off while falling all over yourself. Neither seemed particularly appealing to him, but he had to admit he couldn’t see the appeal in a lot of things other people enjoy regularly.  
“That was a neat party trick,” A hand touches his arm lightly, getting his attention in the crowded bar. A young blonde was smiling up at him, her hand falling slowly back to her waist. “Can’t say I’ve seen many people walk away from that bar after they’ve chugged down a pitcher of liquor like that.”  
Mark hesitates for a moment, suddenly conscious of the close proximity between him and the smiling girl who only came up to his chest. “Well,” He stutters, “I-I guess I’ve just got a high tolerance.”  
The girl blinks, clearly expecting a more clever response. “Aha, so you must have had a hard day on the job then, huh?” She guides him to an unclaimed table in the center of the floor, setting her bottle of beer down while keeping her eyes fixed on Mark. He wasn’t sure what to do in this situation… He doesn’t even know who this girl is. She was still interested, certainly, but he didn’t feel like he was starting this conversation out on the right foot.  
“Actually, I’m going to work in an hour or so.” Mark says innocently, checking his watch.  
“You’ve gotta be joking, you’ll be hammered after drinking all that booze, hon.” She laughs.  
Mark scratches the back of his head sheepishly, “Ahh, ha, well… No, actually, I’m serious. I’ve got work soon.”  
Her laugh dies out slowly before she responds, “Wow.” After pausing for a moment, “That’s gotta be one hell of a job if you got ta be that drunk before you get there.”  
He shrugs a little, “Well, I’ve got a high tolerance, like I said. I’ll be fine. I work security on the night shift over at the Burbank plant.”  
“Ah, sounds like a pretty boring job,” The woman remarks, sipping her beer. “I work the little florist counter at the supermarket most days, but I also take night classes for business and journalism degrees.”  
Mark raises his eyebrows in surprise, admiring her perseverance. “That’s… Impressive. What do you want to do with that?” As conversations go, this was mostly comfortable for him. Yet he felt a small twinge thinking about his future. His… Destiny.  
“Well, don’t laugh,” She smiles shyly, “But I’d like to anchor for Universal News someday.”  
Mark nods politely, “That’s a heckuva dream. Do you think you’ll make it that far?”  
“Uh, well I sure hope I do! I’ll just have to work my pretty little butt off for it, I guess.” She takes another sip of beer, her face making an expression that Mark didn’t really recognize.  
“Seems like a long shot, getting out of Cimarron to do something like that.” Mark shrugs, “I don’t know why anyone would want to leave. Things are quiet here.” He thought briefly of Emil, miles and miles away in Cosmopolis.  
“...You really think so?” Her beer bottle hovers inches from her lips before she takes a long sip. “Try boring. Empty, monotonous.”  
“Monotonous?” Mark raises an eyebrow curiously.  
The woman glances at him, “Yeah. Like… There’s no difference from one day to another. It’s just the same thing over and over and over. Don’tcha get tired of it?”  
Mark nods again, understanding what she means now. “I see. I don’t read much, I guess.”  
“Didn’t do too well on yer SAT, I’m guessing,” She mutters.  
“I didn’t take it, actually,” Mark shrugs diffidently. “Didn’t see the point.”  
The woman blinks in surprise now, almost laughing. “Wow, you really didn’t plan on going anywhere, huh Mark?”  
Mark glances at her. “You know my name?” He asks cautiously, wondering where he might have met her.  
“Yeah? We see each other all the time.” She laughs, but it dies when she sees he’s not joking.  
“We do?” He asks.  
“...I’m Amy?” She responds, raising an eyebrow. “Amy Spooner? We live in the same trailer park? I came by the other day to say hi to your ma, but you weren’t home at the time. Don’t tell me you don’t recognize me, Mark.” She deflates a little, despondent that he had no clue who she was.  
Mark stares blankly at her for a few moments before he remembers what his mom said a few days ago, “Oh, right.” He nods, confirming her identity with matter-of-fact realization. “You’re the gal who stopped by the trailer, right?”  
“...Mark, we pass by each other all the time, we’ve…” She struggles to find the right words. “We’ve been neighbors for years, you mean you… Didn’t know who I was ‘til right now?”  
“...Should I have?” He says, frowning.  
“I-” Mark glances away, thinking. This wasn’t right, he was missing something here. “I’m sorry, I guess you were expecting something… More.”  
Amy’s gaze is inscrutable. “Yeah, I kinda was. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised… All you ever seem to do is go to work and sit on that trailer, staring at the sky.” She pulls her beer bottle off of the table, beginning to walk off. “Seeya, Mark.”  
“Wait, Amy-” He reaches out, lightly grabbing her shoulder, but it’s enough to hold her in place. He spins her back towards him, but he doesn’t know what to say. He knows what it was she wanted… And she was beautiful by the standards of the dusty little Kansas town, he knew that.  
So why did she seem so empty to him?  
“I’m sorry, can- can we start over?” He tries a flicker of a smile.  
Amy purses her lips and nods, setting her beer back on the table, “Y’know, we used to take the same bus to school after your family moved onto the trailer park? You were the brooding, quiet boy who always kept to himself, barely said a word to anyone.”  
“...Was that… Good? Sorry, I’m just really clueless about… Any of this.” Mark smiles, but it’s just as hollow as the girl staring back at him.  
“It was mysterious. Mysterious guys are like Christmas presents, you can imagine just about anything is inside of ‘em, but you don’t know if they’ve got a diamond necklace in ‘em or a blouse that your aunt thinks passes for fashionable.” Amy shrugs, taking a long sip of beer.  
“...And I’m the latter.” Mark nods slowly.  
Amy makes a face and nods back, taking another swig of beer.  
“I’m… Sorry.” Mark lays his palms flat on the table, sighing. “After my dad died and we lost the farm, I… Didn’t really know what to do with myself. Kind of feels like a part of myself died with him.” A part of himself that he’d been holding onto since that night the meteors fell on Cimarron, he knew, but couldn’t share with her.  
Her expression softens and she sighs, “I think I liked you better when you were just a pretty face, Mark. I’m sorry about your dad and the farm, but that was… ten or twelve years ago now, right? Why are you still hung up about it and moping around? You haven’t changed in all of these years, can’t you just let it stay in the past?”  
Mark stares at her expressionlessly, but nods all the same. “You’re absolutely right. It was a long time ago, and… Honestly, it doesn’t bother me at all, I think. Not like it used to. I think this is just who I am, Amy.” He pauses, and nods again. “Yeah. Well, anyhow, I’ve got to get to work now. Enjoy your evening.”  
He walks by her and heads to the door of the bar as she stares at him in shock and confusion. He’d meant every word he just said - honestly, he didn’t feel bad about his dad’s death, not the same way he had when pa had passed away. So whatever he was feeling now, this strange distance from his own life… It really didn’t have much to do with pa’s death at all, did it?  
It doesn’t really matter, though, Mark decides as he pulls himself behind the wheel and starts the engine. Life would go back to normal, a quiet existence where his true nature remains hidden from the world. Pulling out of the parking lot, Mark buries his reservations dredged up by his encounters with his mom and Amy, focusing on his drive to work.  
***  
Mark straightens his Burbank logo cap as he patrols the long corridors of the shipping plant, now shut down for the night. Tall stacks filled with Burbank tech loom over him as he sweeps his flashlight back and forth, following the same patrol route he’d been walking for the past few years. Some of the other security guards found this job to be eerie and unsettling, but not Mark. He relishes the isolation, and something about the long shadows cast against the walls and ceiling seems almost comforting. His footsteps echo around him, reverberating like a Soprano’s aria against the arches of a cathedral, sounds that would be drowned out in the normal daytime operations as a few hundred workers assist machines in packing all of these items for delivery across the country and the world.  
As he reaches the end of the corridor, Mark turns his corner and comes to a stop, his light illuminating Shawshank, the new CRT chief. The burly man had been waiting silently for Mark’s arrival it seems, maybe to play a prank on the security guard and try to surprise him. Mark hadn’t been paying enough attention to detect the chief in advance, but didn’t jump or show any surprise to see Shawshank standing there in the dark.  
“...Damn,” Shawshank chuckles, shaking his head, “Nerves of steel. Didn’t even flinch.”  
“Hi, Mr. Shawshank,” Mark replied tonelessly, not sure what the CRT chief wanted.  
“Relax, Milton. Just call me Shawshank, or Evan. I don’t really care which.” The chief says with a shrug.  
“Ok… Shawshank.”  
“So I’ve gotta ask, Milton, why the hell are you working a dead-end beat like this?” Shawshank stood to the side, allowing Mark to pass by him and continue his route while the chief walked alongside him. “You’re built like a brick house, you apparently don’t scare easily at all - why not join my team?”  
Mark thinks about it, then matches Shawshank’s careless shrug from before. “I like my job. It’s straightforward.”  
“I see.” They walk together in silence for a moment. “Y’know, I looked at the files of all the security guards on staff here.”  
“Mhmm?” Mark scans the stacks, knowing there’s nothing there.  
“You stood out among all of them. There was a little note in your record that none of the others had.”  
“And what was that?” Mark asks.  
“As soon as your application for the job came into the system, the little ol’ HR office here got a call from the corporate HQ in Cosmopolis. By the end of the day you’ve been processed and hired on the spot. Not even an interview.” Shawshank glances at Mark casually. “You’ve got friends in high places, Milton.”  
“I guess so.”  
Shawshank sighs, “You don’t have to be so wound up.”  
Mark blinks and tries to relax his shoulders and jaw. “Sorry… This is kind of just how I am.”  
“I guess my question is why would you have those friends in high places pull strings to get you a job here, in the middle of nowhere?”  
“This is where I wanted to be.” Mark explains neutrally. “I didn’t really want to go anywhere else or do anything else.”  
“Well, if you decide you want to try moving up in the world, come by my office.” Shawshank claps Mark on the shoulder, splitting off to head back towards the main office building. “CRT could use a guy like you, and if someone at HQ likes you so much, you’re a shoe-in for the job. We need guys we can trust when the company has been experiencing so much trouble.”  
Mark nods silently, watching the chief head off until he’s out the door. He didn’t want to talk about how Emil had practically given him this job, and Emil himself hadn’t understood why it was this job in particular that Mark wanted. He had said the same things, that Mark could move upwards in the world… But Mark didn’t want any of that. He was happy taking pride in his best friend’s accomplishments and doing his own small part to contribute to Emil’s success. Apart from that, it was best that he didn’t wander far from his little corner of the world. Mark sighs softly, tired of other people butting into his life and telling him what he ought to do. Novelty is wasted on him, and he certainly didn’t appreciate so many people taking an interest in his life.  
Finishing his rounds in that building, Mark locks the security door behind him and proceeds to the next building. The shipping facility had three large complexes for handling different packing and shipping needs, with four supporting warehouses for product and a small brick office building for administrative staff. A little over a thousand local Cimarron workers worked here day and night to keep the system going across the sprawling campus. As he approaches the next shipping complex, though, he notices that the security door has been left propped open. Mark frowns suspiciously, flicking on his radio but not reporting anything yet. He swings open the unlocked door, stepping into the darkened corridors of the shipping complex. His flashlight sweeps to the right and to the left, but there’s no obvious traces left behind by whoever had broken protocol by leaving the door unlocked and propped open.  
“Hmm,” Mark grunts under his breath, closing his eyes and focusing on expanding his senses outwards. When he opens his eyes again, he can see beyond the normal light spectrum, his heightened vision penetrating through concrete, steel, and more while his hearing tunes to even the most minute noises. Within mere moments he picks up on a single heartbeat accompanied by slow footsteps, his gaze panning over to find a person quietly creeping down the west access corridor towards the small supervisory office in this complex. Focusing on the intruder, Mark’s empowered vision allows him to observe them as if he was standing just behind them. It appeared to be a woman, dressed in dark clothes and carrying no clear identification or uniform that he could tell. She was carrying a cell phone in her pocket and a can of mace, with a ball cap and bandana providing some kind of disguise in case she was detected.  
For the first time since his encounter with the Voice days ago, anger begins to bubble up under Mark’s skin. Whoever she was, this woman was connected to the other break-ins and sabotage against the company, damaging their name and reputation. Mark doesn’t give a damn if she was stealing some random pieces of tech, but this was hurting his friend, his only friend. That was something he couldn’t forgive.  
“CRT, Shawshank, you there?” Mark pulls out his walky-talky and sends a short message.  
“Hear you loud and clear, Mark, what’s up?” Shawshank says lazily.  
Mark looks grimly at the retreating figure as she picks the lock to the supervisory offices. “We’ve got an intruder in E building, a woman standing about 5’6 wearing a ball cap and a bandana. Trying to access the offices.”  
“Shit, you don’t say?” The CRT chief was alert and paying attention now. “Alright, good work, Milton. You fall back from E building now, we’ll take it from here.”  
“Copy that, over and out.” Mark turns off the radio and holsters it on his belt, getting ready to leave… But as he stares at the kneeling figure trying to open the locked door on the far side of the building, he can’t help but feel that anger bubbling over. Why was she doing this? Why was she hurting his friend? He wants to know the answer, he wants to know what callous, mercenary reasons she has for this violation.  
Mark glances over his shoulder at the open door for a moment before grimly deciding he was going to get his answers, and his pound of flesh, before Shawshank and the CRT could get here. Reaching into the inner wells of power inside of him, Mark dashes across the complex, covering the long yards in mere seconds until he’s standing right behind the woman as she continues to rake the lock.  
Pressing his index and middle finger against the back of her head, Mark growls for her to stay still, “I wouldn’t move if I were you. More guards are on their way, and the police won’t be far behind them.” He pauses, listening to her heart hammer in her chest. She was scared, good. “But before they get here, I have one question for you.”  
The statement hangs in the air between them, and if she had anything to say about it she wasn’t sharing that with Mark. He grits his teeth, glaring down at her.  
“Why?” He pushes harder against the back of her head, surprised to find she was resolutely, if futilely, trying to hold her head high. “Why are you doing this? Why are you sabotaging the company?”  
“...You’re awfully invested for a security guard. They offering stock options now as part of their incentive package?” She says, her tone a little glib.  
A spike of anger at her devil-may-care attitude almost causes him to put a beam of light through her skull, and Mark closes his eyes for a moment to get his emotions under control. “I could splatter your brains across that door in an instant, so you better start taking this really damn seriously.”  
“Okay, okay, well if you really want to know-” The woman cuts off her statement by whipping around quickly, grabbing his wrist and trying to kick his legs out from under him. Instead she yelps in pain and lands on her rear, finding that Mark is fairly immovable.  
Mark reaches down and grabs her by the neck, lifting her bodily and slamming her against the door with a cold look. “You’re hurting my friend. He built this company up from nothing and I’ll be damned before I let anyone damage his dream.”  
The woman gasps and chokes, slapping at his wrist and pulling on his fingers to get any sort of respite from the chokehold. “Ack! ACK! HCCK!” Her face is turning a deep shade of red while she fights for her very life, kicking and clawing at him while Mark stares at her impassively.  
The woman wasn’t out for the count yet, though. Gripping his wrist, she swings her legs up to wrap around his arm, twisting to try and apply enough force to break his arm or get him to release her. She gives a strangled, desperate gurgle as his arm refuses to yield and instead switches to kicking him viciously in the face, which he has to pretend actually hurts. She was beginning to turn purple from lack of air and overexertion. She’s a talented martial artist, he notes, and would be effective against a normal man. Unfortunately for her, she wound up with the guy who could bend sheets of steel the way housewives fold blankets.  
After another moment, Mark releases her and lets her fall to the ground in a heap, before kneeling down to be on her level. “You have only a few minutes before the CRT arrives. Tell me what I want to know, now.”  
She rubbed her throat, hacking and gasping for air while staring up at her attacker in terror. “Okay! Okay! I’m a reporter! My name is Linda Lassiter, I’m a reporter for the Cosmopolitan Daily Star!”  
“...A reporter?” Mark scans her with his enhanced senses and… He didn’t perceive anything that made him think she could be lying.  
Linda rifles through her hoodie and produces an ID badge for the Daily Star, holding it up like a talisman of protection. “I swear, I’m not trying to destroy the company or anything, but I am here for a reason!”  
Mark grabs her roughly and pulls her to her feet, “Talk quickly.”  
While wary for her life, and still recovering from the shock of being strangled, Linda doesn’t seem too intimidated. “Alright, I was at all five break-ins across the country, but I’ve been following a lead,” She reaches into her pocket and unlocks her smartphone, holding it up for Mark to see the screen as she swipes through photos, “Eight months ago I got a tip that Burbank Industries was being used to funnel black market goods in and out of the country. The five facilities I went to confirmed this to one extent or another, with dodgy shipping manifests, a few drug caches, but nothing really interesting.”  
Mark blinks in surprise and processes this new information. Could someone really be working against Emil to use the company for smuggling illicit goods? It seems far-fetched.  
She glances at Mark, her green eyes sparkling from the light of her screen. “But the last facility I went to, in Olmstead, well… That had what I was looking for. A manifest hidden under lock and key, detailing that a large shipment of Gulf War armaments had been sent here for safe keeping, in Warehouse H.”  
Mark laughs mirthlessly, shaking his head in response. He could hear that the CRT were approaching the complex quickly, their little golf carts whining at the speed they were being pushed. “You’re out of luck, then. That’s an auxiliary warehouse that hasn’t seen use for months. It’s totally empty.”  
“No, it’s not. I’m sure the weapons are there.” Linda replies with certainty while stuffing her phone back in her pocket. “But I won’t know until I find them.”  
“So why are you breaking into this office?” He nods to the door.  
“From what I found, corroborating records for illegal shipments were being kept here. This was a big operation, and this isn’t the first shipment of weapons they’ve made through here. Whoever is running the show is managing the details meticulously.” She explains quickly, glancing over his shoulder as she hears shouting in the distance. Her gaze lingers on his name badge, and she looks back up at him. “Listen… Milton. Please, just give me this one chance, I’ll prove it to you. You care about this company and you don’t seem to be in on the scheme… If the guns aren’t there, you can hand me over to whoever you called, and forget all about it. I’ll be dead before morning anyhow if those guys are in on the smuggling.”  
Mark chews on her proposal, mentally noting that Shawshank and his team weren’t far off now. He doesn’t think he can trust this woman, but… She doesn’t seem to be lying, either. His curiosity and protectiveness of Emil had already brought him this far… A few more minutes wouldn’t hurt. If the company’s resources are being misused, he wants to know for sure.  
“Alright, you have a deal.” He glances over his shoulder and then beckons for her to follow him. “We’ll take another exit and I’ll take you to Warehouse H. Once you see it’s empty, I’ll be handing you over to the CRT.”  
“...Deal.” Linda looks a bit nervous as she follows after him, but doesn’t say anything else to endanger the fragile opportunity she has just bought for herself.  
The two jog away from the offices through the maze of stacks in the Shipping Complex until Mark stops at another door, pushing it open quietly and guiding her through the threshold before closing the door behind him. He kept his senses at their peak, trying to make sure no one catches up with them or discovers their whereabouts as he quickly guides her across the campus to Warehouse H. Linda seems almost breathless as they jog closer to the small auxiliary building, but also pushed by some hidden drive that Mark could only attempt to comprehend. She was like Amy, another person whose ambitions and motivations eludes a guy like Mark who only wants a simple, quiet life.  
“Moment of truth,” Mark murmurs as they reach the personnel access door to Warehouse H, inputting his personal code and unlocking the door. He and Linda enter the warehouse and Mark sighs, not savoring the satisfaction of knowing she’s wrong for some reason. His vision could pierce through the darkness easily, and there was nothing in there. Still, he couldn’t tip her off to the fact he could see into pitch darkness and he felt his way over to the large lever to switch on the lights, illuminating the empty warehouse.  
“...No.” Linda takes a couple steps forward and looks around the warehouse in confusion. “They… They should be here. Maybe they got moved? If they got moved, the records…” She whirls on Mark, her teeth bared with fury. “Goddamn you, I’ve lost my chance to track where they went! If I got into that office, there might have been another manifest to track where they were shipped!”  
Mark rolls his eyes at the accusation. “Or they were never here at all, and you’re following a ghost story.” He takes a few steps towards her, holding out his hand. “Come on, time to turn you in.” He tunes his hearing back upwards, listening to the confused chatter between the CRT.  
The reporter takes a few steps back from him, pointing a finger back. “No way. I’ve got to find out where those damn guns were taken, and I’m not going to let anyone take me off this story.”  
“Linda, we had a deal.” Mark sighs, following her at a languid pace towards the center of the lit warehouse. “Come on, time to pay the piper-” He stops in place, hearing something… Odd.  
“...What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Linda breathes, already reaching for her pepper spray.  
Mark cocks his head to the side, like a curious dog. “...Didn’t you hear that? That echo?”  
“What echo?”  
He pauses, frowning with confusion, and then points to her foot, “Stomp your foot.”  
His command is baffling, but she would rather do that then be handed over to the CRT, and complies. Lifting her foot up, she stomps it down on the concrete floor.  
“...I don’t hear anything.” She slaps her hands against her sides.  
Mark, however, was certain he’d heard something odd… Like the floor was hollow. Casting his vision downwards, he concentrates on piercing the layers of reinforced concrete… And sure enough he can see there’s a whole hidden storage area running the length of the warehouse.  
“...Milton?” The reporter frowns as he stares at the floor like it just grew a head.  
Mark ignores her, following an electrical conduit through the floor over to the west wall, up along the wall to a junction box… No, a hidden switch. “Move back towards me.” He orders as he jogs across to the fake junction box, popping it open to reveal another lever. Giving it a rough pull, the sound of pneumatics begins to screech loudly as Linda yelps in panic and surprise. A hidden panel was separating from the floor, lifted up by a powerful pneumatic arm to reveal the hidden area below.  
“Hoooly shiiit…” Linda breathes, pulling out her phone and snapping a few photos. “How could you tell this was here?!”  
“...Got good hearing.” Mark shrugs, walking back over to her side. “...You’ve only got a few minutes I reckon before the CRT show up. That made one hell of a racket.”  
She nods decisively, trotting down the steps with phone in hand. A series of flood lights were flickering on, revealing row after row of crates made from wood, metal, or plastic, and marked with official-looking iconography. Against his better judgment, Mark follows her down the stairs, trepidation filling him as he surveys the myriad containers of weapons and tools of war.  
Linda swears again as she takes as many photos as possible. “This isn’t just a truckload of weapons… They’ve been stockpiling weapons here for months. Enough to outfit a small goddamn army!” She peers down to inspect some of the crates. “Spetsnaz... Serbian death squads… Congolese revolutionaries… Turkish commandos... There’s a real who’s-who here, Milton. Probably pilfered or bought off over the years from all these different groups.”  
“...Including the US military…” Mark observes, running a hand over white lettering that designated one crate as official property of the US Army.  
Linda nods while going back further. “Yeah, like I mentioned earlier the truckload I was tracking had stolen military hardware from the 90’s Gulf War. Probably skimmed off while the US was preparing to invade Iraq from Kuwait.”  
“...But who is going to buy all of this junk? What criminal could possibly need this much?” Mark asks incredulously.  
The reporter pauses to look at him, before going back to taking pictures. “They’re already bought and paid for. The terrorist group, Menace, has been funding all of this.”  
“...Menace?” Mark has to wrack his brains for a moment. “Weren’t they a Cold War thing? I remember seeing something on the History Channel about them.”  
“They did go underground at the end of the Cold War when the Soviets collapsed, but they didn’t just disappear. They’ve been active ever since, causing chaos all over Africa, South America, Asia, and Europe. The Balkans, Rwanda, the Tokyo gas attacks, bombings in the Middle East, they have a hand in all of it, supplying other groups and suggesting targets.” She replies grimly.  
“...You’re a reporter, but you believe in conspiracy theories like that?” Mark laughs, “Seriously, how could one group be responsible for all of that?”  
She shoots him a glare, “Believe what you like, but if I’m right your friend’s company has been infiltrated by one of the oldest and most dangerous terrorist organizations the world has ever seen, and by the looks of this they’re planning on kicking off their come-back party.”  
That poured ice water on Mark’s humor. She was right, in a sense, someone was using Emil and the company to move weapons and munitions, a lot of them. If they were for an international terrorist organization, Emil could be in serious jeopardy. Distracted from the conversation for a moment, Mark realizes the door to the warehouse above has been opened, three pairs of footsteps creeping inside. Acting quickly, he grabs Linda by the shoulder and dives behind one of the crates. He covers her mouth to suppress any squeaks of surprise and brings his finger to his lips, trying to keep her quiet.  
“...They’re down there.” Shawshank whispers above, peering down the stairs. “Follow me, fan out. If you see anyone, shoot. We’re not in the business of leaving witnesses.”  
Mark swore silently, realizing how deeply he’s just stepped in it. Of course Emil had been pressured to let these CRT assholes into the company’s facilities, someone on the board must have something to do with this. He could get out of this, probably, but doing that without exposing his powers was another matter altogether.  
He slowly slips his hand from Linda’s mouth. “They’ve got us cornered.” He whispers softly. “Let them get as close as possible, I’ll create a distraction, then we make a break for it. Maybe try to seal them down here.”  
“Are you out of your mind?!” She whispers back harshly. “They’ll get us for sure!”  
Mark shrugs, “Yeah, but it’s better to go out running than hiding.”  
“...I could just sell out the asshole who tried to strangle me to death earlier.” She glowers at him.  
He pauses, then nods. “Okay, that’s fair, but they’d probably shoot you anyhow.”  
“I’m fast.” She grunts under her breath. “Probably faster than you.”  
“Good, think fast thoughts.” He rolls his eyes, peeking around the corner. “Because we don’t have much time before they’re right on top of us.”  
He doesn’t recognize the CRT guard coming down the aisle towards him, which makes what he was planning a little easier. It was easier to hurt people trying to kill you when you didn’t really know them that well.  
“Mark?” Shawshank called out from somewhere in the middle of the room. “Listen buddy, if you’re down here, this doesn’t have to end badly. Whatever she has told you can be explained easily. Just come out of hiding and we’ll take you back to the office while one of us deals with the woman.”  
Linda glances over at Mark worriedly, but he shakes his head. That wasn’t going to happen, though he was eager to find out who these meatheads were working for in reality.  
“C’mon, Mark, don’t be stupid. You’ve had a good career here, everyone loves ya.” He pauses, then fiddles with something on his vest. “Everyone loves ya, you know that. Your boss, Eric, he’s a mean cuss, but he does think you’re a hard worker. Said a lot of good things about you.”  
Shawshank’s friendly demeanor evaporates in an instant as he turns on the radio. “So if you don’t come out in the next ten seconds, I’m going to have one of my boys over at the office blow his goddamn brains out all over his desk. And it’ll be all on you, my friend, because you were too stupid to realize you were backing the wrong horse. If you don’t want that to happen, get your ass out here right now!”  
Mark freezes for a moment, uncertain of what to do. There was no way he could stop that from happening, stop them from killing Eric… Not unless he came out of hiding… But they would shoot him instantly, and that would unveil his secret, at least probably. He’d never tried to take a gunshot before, but he was fairly certain it couldn’t pierce his tough skin. But if he just stayed put, someone would die. They were too far away, too far away to make their move…  
“...” Linda squeezes Mark’s shoulder and gives him a sad smile. Was she saying it was okay? He should stand up? Just give up and hope Shawshank was feeling merciful?  
“Jesus Christ, I guess we’re burying three bodies tonight, okay then.” Shawshank sighs, thumbing his radio. “Reid, kill the-”  
Fury boils up in Mark’s chest and he rises from the floor, pulling Linda along behind him as he whirls around the corner of the box towards the guard he didn’t recognize coming up the aisle. Quickly unholstering his flashlight, Mark flicks it at the guard and dashes forward down the aisle and to freedom. The guard didn’t have time to make a noise or fire off a shot as the flashlight shot across the distance, ricocheting off the guard’s masked face with a sickening crunch. Mark doesn’t give much thought to that or to the shout of alarm coming from Shawshank, instead dragging Linda down the aisle. To the reporter’s credit, though, she got the uptick fast and bolted past Mark while staying low to the ground, gunshots ringing around them as Shawshank and his remaining teammate opened fire on the escaping duo. Mark pauses to coldly eye the CRT chief before shoving one of the stacked crates with all his strength, sending it flying across the hidden room. Shawshank yelps in terror, jumping to the side, and the crate flies true to splatter his teammate against the wall, shattering and disgorging its contents all over the gore-soaked floor.  
Mark and Linda made it to the stairs, scrambling up to the warehouse while bullets plinked off the ground nearby. Mark shoved Linda towards the door while he made a break for the junction box.  
“Get to the employee parking lot! We’ll take my truck out of here! Go! Go!” He barks, boosting his speed to reach the lever and wrench it back into position. The pneumatics hiss in response, lowering the heavy concrete tile back into place. Just for good measure, Mark grunts and rips the lever off the junction box.  
“Shit! SHIT!” Shawshank was running for the closing entrance, but as both he and Mark could tell he wouldn’t make it in time. “They’re getting away! Team 2, get your asses out here, they’re going to get away!” He barks into his walkie-talkie before the concrete slab lowers completely, entombing him. Shawshank screams from within, but it will be a little while before anyone is able to free him from his impromptu prison.  
Mark huffs, turning on his heel and chasing Linda out onto the campus. She was leading fairly easily, but with a bit of enhanced speed he would catch up to her with ease. As they bolt for the parking lot, other security guards from Mark’s cohort were chasing and shouting, but without guns they were harmless. The other CRT group however had gotten into a golf cart and were chasing after them.  
“Incoming!” Mark yelled, positioning himself between the golf cart and Linda as the CRT team opened fire. Bullets whizz by their heads and Mark distinctly feels one hit him in the back - but it doesn’t hurt at all! “We’re almost there!” He shouts as they get closer to the parking lot. Spinning around, he whips his walkie-talkie across the campus, hitting the cart driver in the face and sending the pursuers into a crash. He savors the well-placed shot, feeling a sort of exhilaration and thrill he hasn't felt in a long, long time. As dangerous as this is, he's enjoying himself. He feels alive. His powers keep him from getting hurt and he is actually taking part in something that was more exciting than monotonous patrol routes.

Mark is broken out of his pleasant buzz by a gunshot ricocheting off his shoulder. Blinking in surprise, he turns on his heel and sprints to catch up with Linda again.

As they enter the parking lot, Mark herds Linda over to his truck and unlocks the door before running back around to his side, finding it unlocked already by his new partner in crime. Jumping into his seat hurriedly, Mark turns the ignition and throws the truck into gear, screeching out of the parking lot as more bullets scream by. One bullet manages to hit the back of the truck, shattering the rear window, but it's too late to stop the two from escaping. Burning rubber and slamming through the guard rail at the opposite end of the parking lot, Mark and Linda disappear into the night.


	4. Mothers and Fathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark and Linda escape from the CRT, but they're not out of the woods yet.

The adrenaline from their escape was slowly ebbing as Mark and Linda raced through the night. Mark doesn’t even know where he’s driving, only making sure they’re leaving the shipping center far behind in their dust. The wind whistles around them from the shattered rear window, the only accompaniment to the roar of the engine. It was close to four in the morning and most of Cimarron was still asleep, though the farmers would soon be waking up to start their daily chores anew.   
“Stop the car,” Linda says, finally breaking the silence.  
Mark blinks, surprised from his reverie. “Hm?”  
“Stop the car!”   
He complies quickly, pulling the truck over on the side of the road, the suspension rocking as they come to a halt on gravel. Linda throws open the door and staggers out into the field before finally doubling over and heaving onto the ground. Mark grimaces at the retching noise, but otherwise tries to give her a modicum of dignity and privacy before she straightens and returns to the truck.  
Linda wipes her chin with the back of her hand, not bothering to look at Mark. “Sorry, that happens sometimes. Not the first time I’ve been shot at, but whenever the adrenaline wears off I always feel sick to my stomach.” She sighs, leaning her head back. “I need to get back to Cosmopolis. I have to run this story.”  
“...You’ve been shot at before?” Mark asks, looking over at the reporter.  
Linda nods distractedly while pulling her phone out. “I was embedded overseas in Baghdad for two years. Got used to having a target on my back.”  
Mark gives her a blank stare, but Linda was too engrossed in her phone to notice or care. When she finally lifts her head from the phone, she seems more sure of herself.  
“I’ve got a charter plane at the regional airport outside of town. Take me there, I’ll get out to Cosmopolis.”  
“You’re a pilot too?” Mark comments as he puts the truck back into gear and onto the road.   
She nods, “Yeah, my uncle taught me how to fly, he’s a former Air Force pilot.” Linda pauses for a moment, “You should come with me, Mark. It’s going to be dangerous if you stay here, those guys aren’t going to just let this go.”  
Mark shakes his head, “I’ll be fine, I can take care of myself. Once you-” He pauses, icy realization settling into his stomach. He could take care of himself, but they had all sorts of personal information about him on file back at the office, including where he lives. If they got to the trailer park, they might find his mom alone and completely inebriated. Barely slowing down, Mark takes the next turn to get to the mobile home as quickly as possible. The truck’s tires screech in protest as he takes the sharp turn and Linda yelps with them, surprised by the sudden action.  
“What the hell, Mark?!” She barks.  
“I’m sorry, but the airport will have to wait,” Mark replies breathlessly, “They know where I live, and my mom… My mom could be in danger. Once she’s somewhere safe, I’ll take you to the airport, okay?”  
Linda stares at Mark for a moment before nodding in reply. He doesn’t know how to say it, but he appreciates the silent understanding and support, that the life of one drunken woman in the middle of nowhere was more important than Linda’s own ambitions and survival instinct. He remembers how he’d almost strangled her to death, and remorse pools in his gut.  
“...I’m sorry.” He chokes out, eyes fixed ahead on the road.  
Linda blinks, “Pardon?”  
“I’m sorry for attacking you earlier. For choking you. I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have done that, I was just angry.” Mark apologizes, avoiding eye contact.   
“...” The reporter gazes at Mark for a moment. “Emil Burbank, the founder of the company, grew up in this town.” She observes.  
Mark nods silently, but doesn’t respond.  
“You knew him when you were a boy, didn’t you? You were friends.” She deduces.   
“...Yeah. Emil and I go way back. He offered me a job with the company a few years ago.” Mark admits.  
“Just a security guard job?” She asks with a raised eyebrow.  
Mark shakes his head, “No, he was going to put me in charge of the whole shipping center. I told him he would be better off hiring me as a security guard, I didn’t have what it took to run one of his facilities.”  
Linda absorbs this, still curious about why he would turn down a lucrative position, but opting to ignore her reporter’s instincts and not pry. “...Apology accepted.” She says, but can’t help but rub the bruises on her neck. “It was a misunderstanding.”  
Mark nods in appreciation, feeling a little relief for the remorse. By his estimation, they’d be at the trailer park in roughly ten minutes, probably sooner given how he was putting the pedal to the metal. The next few minutes were silent between them, both lost in their own thoughts before Mark clears his throat.  
“So… Menace.” He glances at her, “Let’s say I believe you. What exactly is going on with them?”  
Linda perks up, happy to fill him in on all the juicy details. “So Menace was originally just one man. At the height of the Cold War, someone was taking out Western spies, diplomats, politicians, military leaders, captains of industry - whoever happened to be an easy target. No one knew who Menace was, just that he was aligned with the Soviets and his campaign against the West wasn’t business, but a personal vendetta. As he went along, he slowly recruited a cabal of like-minded individuals who were all ideologically motivated to attack the West.”  
“Oookay…” Mark frowns, not sure where this was going. It seems vaguely familiar from TV programs and history books, but that was not his usual topic of interest.   
“The Soviet Union collapses, but by that point Menace wasn’t a man, it was a movement. A highly sophisticated organization that treated Menace like a figurehead, not an actual leader. Individual cells were empowered to act as they saw fit, and only the highest echelons took any direction or advice from the man at the center of it all.” Her explanation is accompanied by dramatic gestures to emphasize her point. “When the Cold War ended, some scholars called it the end of history, but Menace was planning on it being the beginning of the end of the West.”   
“Let’s cut to the chase, why would they be using Emil’s company?”  
Linda sighs, annoyed at being interrupted. “Their portfolio of terrorist activity has grown since the 60s, but beyond the September 11th attacks their activities have been largely in the third world. They’ve been using proxies or encouraging and supplying other organizations to do the work for them. I think stockpiles like the one we found indicate that they’re planning on coming out of the shadows to begin their war on Western civilization itself.”  
“You sound like the guys on the news my mom watches.” Mark says, rolling his eyes.   
She shoots him a glare in response. “Listen, I know it sounds all grand and dramatic, but that’s what these nutjobs believe! They’ll take anyone who wants to cause trouble, from the IRA to Al-Qaeda to the FARC, but at the highest levels what Menace and his closest allies want is to cause civilization-ending chaos and war.”  
Mark frowns, tapping his thumb against the wheel. “Are you sure that isn’t just what they tell people like you to scare you, get you riled up? How do you know you’re not doing exactly what they want, giving airtime to a bunch of aging Cold War revolutionaries who just want to feel important again?”  
“...I have it on good authority that these guys are the real deal.” Linda responds icily.   
He grunts, shrugging. “Well, whoever these people are, they have no real problems with murdering anyone who gets in their way. Whatever grand notions of destiny they may or may not have, that alone is enough to tell me they’re the bad guys.” He pops his blinker out of habit as they approach the trailer park, turning in and rolling down the road towards his home. “Doesn’t look like they made it here before us, that’s good.” He mutters, scanning the area as they park by his mobile home.   
Mark leaves the motor running and hops out of the truck, followed quickly by Linda. “No, stay in the truck.” He points back at the vehicle, but she flips him the bird and pulls out her can of mace. Mark grumbles in frustration but relents, leading her up to the front door. It was unlocked, which tells him that his mom had made it home from the bar, and he steps inside quietly.  
“Mom?” Mark calls out in a low voice. “You here?”   
A rumbling snore from the small couch confirms that his mom had made it home, all right. She was disheveled and wrapped in a tattered blanket, but seems no worse for wear. Mark strides over and lifts her upright, softly tapping her cheek as she snorts in confusion.  
“Mom? Mom? You’ve gotta wake up.” He sighs, trying to get her up.  
“Marky?” She blinks slowly, swaying from side to side. “Wha’s goin’ on?”  
Mark grunts as he helps her to her feet. “We’ve gotta go, ma, there’s trouble on the way.”  
“Who’s this young lady?” Gemma stares at Linda with unfocused eyes. “Didju bring a gal home…?”  
He glowers at Linda, who was stifling a chuckle. “...Not exactly.” He remarks as he herds Gemma out the door towards the truck. He and Linda help Gemma clamber up into the truck’s cab, getting her situated in the middle of the seat and buckling in before getting in themselves. Mark doesn’t waste any time, throwing the truck in reverse and spraying gravel as the wheels spin, pulling it around and driving back onto the main roads.  
“...” His mom dozes a little before leaning over and propping her head on his shoulder. She was definitely still on the verge of being black-out drunk. Mark and Linda both glance at her to check she’s okay, before quietly turning back to the road.  
“Hem, hm.” Linda pretends to clear her throat to cover a laugh.  
“Don’t say it.” Mark warns.  
“Hm? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Linda replies innocently.  
“Don’t you say it.”  
She shakes her head, “Don’t say what?”  
“I swear-”  
“What? Did Momma embarrass her big, tough Marky-” Linda teases him.  
Mark’s cheeks burn red hot as he slouches over the wheel. “Oh my god, I told you-”  
“-when he’s got a lady friend over-”  
“-not to say it, and yet-”  
“-such a big momma’s boy-”  
“Wouldja both shut up?!” Gemma grouses, straightening up suddenly and plugging her hands over her ears. “Trying to get some gom-damn… goddamn… I’m trying to sleep!”  
Both clam up immediately, but Linda can barely restrain her laughter, shaking in place and swiping at tears trickling down her cheeks so as to not bother Gemma again.  
“...It wasn’t that funny.” Mark grunts as they speed past the old gas station.  
She doesn’t respond and merely continues to smile at his embarrassed expression. Mark focuses on the road, but the thought of how dangerous the past hour has been for them lingers. It was amazing to him that she could laugh at a time like this, be able to mentally and emotionally divide herself from the peril earlier. Being able to cut loose and use his powers for once had been oddly thrilling for him, but after all of that he can’t help but brood over the implications of what he had learned. Emil could be in danger too, his mother could be in danger if they thought they could use her as leverage against Mark. It was strange that Linda could relax at a time like this.   
Then again, she did say she’d been shot at before, Mark muses. Perhaps one just gets accustomed to being shot at if it happens enough times. The threat of being shot had made him apprehensive, to be sure, but he had known there was a likely chance the bullets would have little effect on his super-tough skin.   
Mark pushes those thoughts aside as he spins the wheel and pumps the brakes, coming to a stop underneath familiar pines bordering the front door of a familiar house, now much more worn and beaten down by the years that had passed by. Linda shoots him an inquisitive look, but Mark doesn’t reply as he easily lifts his mom out of the cab and slings her arm over his shoulder, helping her to stagger up to the front door. He opens the outer screen door and holds it with his foot against the porch railing while curtly knocking on the front door. After a few minutes of waiting impatiently and listening to crickets, he raps his knuckles against the front door, this time finally eliciting a reaction from inside. The hallway light flickers on and a silhouette moves to open the door.  
“Do you have any goddamn clue what hour it… Is…?” The woman blinks languidly, as if she thought she was still dreaming. “Mark? What the hell are you doin’ here?”  
“Hi, Mrs. Bee,” Mark says with a tired smile and hefts his mom’s other arm to affect a wave. “Mind if we step inside?”  
Mrs. Burbank pauses for a moment before remembering herself and stepping to the side, allowing them in while holding the door open. The living room was much cleaner than it had been in Mark’s childhood, the carpet replaced and discoloration from cigarette smoke cleaned off. The old boxy TV that Mark and Emil had watched wrestling on had long ago been replaced by some newer flat-screen version, something Mr. Burbank had purchased before he passed away. Since that day, Mrs. Burbank had been taking better care of the interior of the house, and had even quit drinking and smoking.  
“Mark, I uh-, I’d like to know why you’re in my living room in the middle of the night.” Mrs. Burbank says with a bit of a shaken smile while Linda passes by her to enter the house. The reporter’s journalistic instincts were awake and she could smell that there was some juicy context here, ripe for a story.  
Mark smiles back sheepishly, nodding to his half-awake mother. “She’s had one too many tonight and uh… I can’t really take her back to the trailer.”  
She plays with the hem of her shirt before nodding. “Well, uh… I ain’t sure why you can’t just go on to your home, but… We can put ‘er up in Emil’s old room. Come with me.”  
“I know the way,” Mark responds quickly, but she just waves him off and leads him down the hallway to Emil’s room. It’d been redecorated, all the old piles of junk and crates of tools cleaned out years ago. Now it was just a quaint little country guest room. Mark lays his mother down on the bed gently and pulls the covers over her and heads back to the living room with Mrs. Burbank to find Linda studying a family photo from the ‘80s.   
“How did his father die?” Linda asks nonchalantly, not looking up from the picture.  
Mrs. Burbank twitches slightly, but answers with a frown. “Liver disease. Old bastard drank like a fish, and he paid the price for it.” She glances at Mark, “You didn’t introduce your lady friend here.”  
“Oh, this is, uh…” He glances at Linda looking for help, which the reporter obliges.  
“Lassie. Like the Collie.” She smiles, putting the picture down. “I’m from out of town.”  
Mrs. Burbank nods, heading into the kitchen. “That much was obvious…”  
Linda makes a face at that comment, not certain how barbed Mrs. Burbank had meant for that to be, but Mark just shrugs and follows her into the kitchen. “Listen, Mrs. Bee, I’d really appreciate it if you could put ma up for a couple of days, just as long as I can sort a couple things out.”  
The old woman sighs, rummaging through her drawers before retrieving a pack of gum. “You in some sort of trouble, Mark?” She asks, popping one of the sticks of gum into her mouth.  
“No ma’am, the situation is just… Complicated.” He rubs the back of his neck, feeling like the awkward answer wasn’t going to be sufficient.   
Mrs. Burbank gave him the sort of deadpan stare that only a mother could give, but didn’t say anything. Mark weathers the uncomfortable silence for a moment before clearing his throat and continuing, “Well, you see, uh… We’ve been late on our… Mortgage? And I just need to get some money together and keep mom out of sight.”  
“You’re in with loan sharks like that Hyneman boy?” Mrs. Burbank replies with a raised eyebrow.   
“Yes. Yes, that is what is happening.” He nods.  
Mrs. Burbank continues to give him a withering look.  
“...” Mark sighs, his shoulders dropping. “This… Affects Emil too. I need to do something for him, but I don’t know-”  
“Now I know you’re lying.” Mrs. Burbank says waspishly, “Emil doesn’t give two shits about this town or anyone in it. He’s too much of a bigshot to be involved back here.”  
Mark grits his teeth involuntarily, that comment bringing out a flash of his temper. He could sense Linda lingering close to the threshold of the kitchen, listening in with rapt attention. “You’re wrong.” He says slowly.  
“Am I? So apart from building that damn plant on the edge of town, what exactly has he done for you or me, huh?” Mrs. Burbank’s bitter reply stings. “I’ve never seen a penny for all his money, and neither have you or your ma.”  
Mark leans over the table, looming over her. “I never wanted his goddamn money. The reason you didn’t get any is because you were a shitty mother. Emil doesn’t owe you a cent.”  
Her eyes widen in anger but she doesn’t rise from her chair. “I don’t give a shit what trouble you’ve gotten yourself into, you don’t insult and disrespect me in my goddamn house, Mark Milton. Your ma can stay ‘til she’s ready to go, though God knows I could kick her out too for how much that bitch looked down her nose at me all these years. But you? Uh-uh. Take your whore and get the hell out of my house.”  
He snarls in response and turns on his heel, walking quickly to the door and not particularly caring whether or not Linda was following along. As he opens the door, Mrs. Burbank gives one last parting shot, “Makes sense both you and Emil turned out to be little shits who disrespect your elders. Y’all were all over each other, it’d make sense a couple of fa-”  
Mark doesn’t hear her finish the sentence, marching out the door and hopping into his truck. It took several moments for the ringing in his ears to die down and for him to realize Linda was sitting in the truck with him. She has a sympathetic expression, but doesn’t say anything to disrupt the silence.   
“She’s not winning any mom of the year awards.” Mark says sullenly after a while. “Emil was like my brother, but his parents hated his happiness. So… They made a lot of comments about us. Tried to make us feel shitty for being close. His dad especially was a piece of shit.”   
Linda nods slowly, looking down at her lap. “I… Know what it’s like to deal with that sort of attitude. My dad was a real piece of work.”  
“...I never really got much time to really know my dad.” Mark sighs, turning the keys and starting the engine.  
“What happened to him?”  
Mark keeps his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “He died when I was 11. He worked himself to death.”  
“I’m sorry, Mark.” She says softly.  
He shrugs, rolling with the bumpy road as he drives the truck back out into the night. On the horizon the first pale rays of dawn are beginning to appear. His father isn’t a topic he wants to discuss, not when there’s so many other things at stake. Their drive out of Cimarron was silent, with Linda spending her time making notes on her phone while Mark focuses on driving. So far there had been no sign of any more attempts by the CRT to apprehend them, but Mark did see police lights flashing in the distance on parallel or intersecting highways. The gunfire had likely drawn more attention than the CRT was comfortable with, especially if they didn’t want to tip the police off to any illegal activities at the facility. While going to the police wasn’t a bad idea as far as Mark was concerned, he prefers getting his mom safely ensconced somewhere and Linda on a place to Cosmopolis first.  
The airport’s small parking lot has only a couple cars parked sporadically, likely a two-man night shift crew manning the control tower. Mark and Linda step out of the truck and circle to the front, the reporter pushing her hands into her pockets with a cheeky grin.  
“Well, the night didn’t go exactly as planned, but you made for a hell of a partner, Sim.”  
Mark frowns quizzically, “Sim?”  
“Short for Cimarron. I like giving people nicknames.” She shrugs, but a moment of silence lingers between them. “Listen, you should come with me, y’know? To Cosmopolis. You’d make a great source for all the crazy shit we went through.”  
Mark shakes his head, “Sorry, I’ve gotta sort things out here.”  
“Sort things out?” She chuckles incredulously, “Sim, these guys were shooting to kill. All those muscles you got under that uniform might make you a tall glass of water, but they don’t make you bulletproof.” Mark raises an eyebrow at the observation and she reddens a little bit. “What? I ain’t hitting on you, Sim, get your head out of the gutter. I’m a reporter, I’ve got an eye for detail.”  
Mark gives an amused huff, but shakes his head again. “I’m better off here, this is my home. I’m not giving it up to those assholes. Besides, I gotta make sure mom is kept safe.”  
Linda sighs, checking the clock on her phone. “Worth a shot. I’ve got a few hours before my mechanic will get here and clear me for take-off, but once that’s done I’ll be on my way.”  
“Sounds good.” Mark pauses for a moment, before clearing his throat, “There is one favor I’d like to ask of you.”  
“Oh yeah?” She gives him a roguish smirk.  
“...You know Emil isn’t… He’s not responsible for any of this, right?” Mark says softly. “He’s not. He’s a victim here.”  
Her smirk fades and Linda sighs. “I… Don’t have any proof that he was or wasn’t responsible for this, Mark… But it is a little bit of a coincidence that a stockpile of dangerous weapons would be here in the plant he had built in his hometown.”  
Mark cringes a little, but presses on, “He’s a victim here, Linda. I know it. It would crush him to learn about this. I’d at least like to call him before you run the article, soften the blow a little.”  
“I… Don’t know if that would be a great idea, Mark.” Linda says carefully, anxious about this line of inquiry.   
“Please, he’s my friend. I owe him, please just… Give him the benefit of the doubt, alright?”   
The reporter sighs and nods slowly. “Yeah, I’ll… Try not to slant it too much one way or another. Fair and balanced.”  
Mark smiles with relief and extends his hand. “It was nice meeting you, Linda Lassiter.”  
“You too, Mark Milton.” She grabs his hand in her own, giving it a firm shake. “Stay safe.”  
He releases her hand and walks back to hop into the truck, waving sheepishly before starting it back up and driving away. She watches him go before heading off to try and get into one of the three hangars on the premises of the airport. Mark exhales slowly, decompressing as he heads back out. He needs to contact Emil, let him know what was happening... And he needs to take time to think. So often he has all the time he needs to mull over something, turning it over and over in his head for hours until he grows bored with it. The last few hours had been a nonstop race to get a hold of the situation, not a state of affairs Mark was used to handling. He doesn’t want to go back to the trailer park and risk alerting the CRT if they are staking out the house, and he doesn’t want to be spotted back at the Burbank house… Not that Mrs. Burbank was likely to let him back in after their little spat. He decides to go where he wouldn’t likely be recognized, and where his new enemies would be unlikely to search for him.  
A quick drive down 5th street brought him to Cimarron Cemetery as the dawn broke, washing the sky in pink and orange while he drove up to the locked gates of the graveyard. Parking his car outside, Mark walks up to the wrought iron fence guarding the perimeter of the cemetery and hops over it in a single bound, landing on the other side just a few feet from one of the graves. He stares blankly at the gravestone for a moment before getting to his feet and walking past it towards his destination. They barely were able to afford the small plot of land where Alfred Milton could be buried after his death, and there was no space to either side for Mark’s mother to be buried when she eventually passed on. The people buried on either side would always be strangers, but it was still more than Emil’s father had gotten when he passed away. They’d cremated his corpse and scattered the ashes out in the plains, where the wind whipped it into a dust devil and carried it upwards.   
Mark stands over his father’s gravestone for a while as the sunrise continues to climb into the sky and the world wakes up around him. Finally he pulls out his phone and his Emil’s number in his speed dial, waiting patiently while the ringing repeats itself over and over.  
“Hey there, sorry you missed me but I’m too busy being a baller!” Emil’s voicemail kicked on, replaying the cheesy greeting he’d left. “Leave me a message with your name and number after the beep and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, laaaater!”  
Mark grunts, frustrated he isn’t able to reach his friend. “Emil, it’s Mark.” He says on cue after the beep. “Something bad happened at the plant last night, I need to talk to you. The company is in danger. Call me back.” He ends the call and pockets his phone, looking down at his father’s grave grimly.  
“...I couldn’t save you, Dad.” He mutters, kneeling down. “But I’ll save Emil. I’ll warn him before it’s too late.”  
Mark had felt bad lying to Linda earlier, but the truth of his father’s passing was one he didn’t like to talk about. It made him feel… Alien. As Mark grew older after the incident the night of the meteors, his powers began to manifest, but so did his connection with the machine his father had buried out in the plains. The boy wasn’t sure what was happening, but it unnerved his parents, frightened them. Eventually it became too much to cope with. His mother turned to the same coping habits as Emma Burbank, smoking and drinking copiously to numb herself to the reality of her changing son.  
His father… Handled it much differently. He’d seen something that night that irrevocably altered him to his core. He made Mark swear to never use his powers, to never tell anyone else. The boy was to keep his head down, never draw any attention, never reveal his secret to anyone. The world wasn’t ready to see what Al had seen that night. It was already destroying him.  
Mark was only 11 when it happened, that much was true when he had lied to Linda. He woke up in the middle of the night when his sensitive hearing had detected someone moving around the house. The footsteps, the breathing, even his heart rhythm were all familiar to Mark, who knew quickly his father was just up late, in the little cupboard with a desk in it that he called his study. Al was muttering under his breath, too indistinct for Mark to tell what he was saying, but he sounded upset, scared even. Mark sat in bed and listened to his father shed tears, beg for forgiveness, ask for a miracle…  
“Good God in Heaven, please don’t let me die tonight,” His father had whispered in the dark, with the barrel of a pistol pressed to his head.   
And then finally he pulled back the hammer on the Colt six-shooter he kept in his bedside table. Mark hadn’t even had time to react when the trigger was pulled and Al had blown his head off. He could hear his body slump to the floor, but he was so shocked by the suicide he couldn’t even move.  
The worst part was even when he went down to find his mother sobbing and cradling the limp body of his father, even when Mark sat with her on the front porch, her bloody hand holding his, even when they finally buried him… Mark had felt nothing. Not a tear was shed for his lost father, who had killed himself because of how terrifyingly different Mark had become after the night of the meteor shower. And Mark couldn’t even cry. Somewhere, deep down, he knew that he should have been able to cry. He ought to have cried, to have felt something. He should have been able to save his father. He should have cared enough to save his father.  
It wasn’t until a long time after that night he began to feel human again. Feel happiness, anger, sorrow. He felt deep regret over his inaction that night. He had promised his father that he would never use his powers… But if he had, Mark could have stopped his father from killing himself.  
A low droning noise pulls Mark out of his reverie and he looks up to see an airplane taking off, soaring away overhead and heading east towards the yellow sunrise. A quick scan with his enhanced senses told him all he needed to know: it was Linda, escaping to safety. He had at least been able to help her, and in doing so, he was helping Emil. It would hurt for Emil to have his company exposed like this, but it would all work out in the end. Mark would be there to help him. It was for the best.  
A stuttering pop rings from the engine of Linda’s airplane, the rotors spinning to a sudden halt as a small gout of black smoke puffs outwards. The engine went dead silent and the plane coasts forward about a hundred feet before suddenly catching a gust of wind and flipping over, falling towards the earth. Mark could hear Linda’s voice, her panicked and desperate pleas of mayday, knowing that she is going to die when the airplane crashes to the ground.  
“I made a promise, Dad,” Mark whispers weakly, watching the plane as it falls. Hearing her screams of terror.  
“What do I do?”  
He’d already broken that promise once today to save her… He used his powers to escape the plant. But this was different. There was no hiding what was going to happen if he tried now.  
“What do I do?” He asks again, his heart pounding in his chest.  
You do what you must. The machine replies.  
Mark’s heart skips a beat, and he feels so dissociated from this moment, weightless… But he nods, knowing that the destiny he was trying to avoid seemed to have a way of finding him regardless. Planting his fist on his father’s grave, Mark closes his eyes… And leaps forward, flying up into the air and soaring towards the falling plane. It wasn’t too big, only large enough to seat four people, so he isn’t worried about destroying it in mid fall by applying too much pressure to one small area of the hull. He’d be able to spread his strength effectively to catch it. Slowing his speed to match the falling plane, he intercepts it from below and brings it to a halt mid-air, floating fifty feet over the plains of Kansas.   
Linda is jarred roughly by the sudden halt, and it takes her a moment to get her bearings. She isn’t dead, and she isn’t falling anymore… The ground was far beneath her, and she was suspended in mid-air over it. Clearing her hair from her face, she looks down through the pluming black smoke to see a person gripping the front of her plane. When the wind catches it right, she is able to see the man who inexplicably saved her from certain death.  
She gasps in shock as he looks up at her with a steely, anxious gaze. His name escapes her lips on an incredulous breath, “Mark?”


	5. Miles to Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark and Linda journey to Cosmopolis, but Mark makes a snap decision without her input.

Linda sighs and wipes her oily hands on her jeans tiredly. She had been quiet since Mark set the plane down in the field, focusing on inspecting the plane’s engine and not asking him any questions. He’d expected an interrogation from the reporter, or maybe for her to just run away in sheer terror at his powers… But instead she went to work on the engine. She was trying to figure out what had gone wrong and sent her plane plummeting back down to earth. 

Mark stands a few yards away, keeping watch while she works. He isn’t used to feeling anxious, but her silence was stirring a remarkable amount of apprehension. The only distraction was to keep an eye out for any police or CRT to show up. Standing out in the middle of the plains wasn’t a particularly hidden location from prying eyes. 

“Yeah, there’s no doubt about it,” Linda grunts, closing the panel to the engine. “It was the gas turbine.”

“What happened?” Mark asks, striding closer to the plane and sweeping over it with his powerful vision. His sight pierced through metal, showing him an incredible amount of detail that he lacks the technical knowledge to make sense of. 

“Sabotage. The Socata TBM 700 series was designed with easy maintenance in mind. All of these main parts can be pulled out like lego pieces if they’re overheating or broken… But the gas turbine’s bolts were taken out. It shook itself loose taking off and decoupled from the rest of the engine. No gas, no flight.” She slumps to the ground, leaning back against the plane.

Mark frowns. “Well, we can just get new bolts to fix it in place, right?”

“We could, yeah, but the turbine broke when it fell out of place. I’d have to wait for a replacement part to be sent out here too, and if the CRT were able to track down my plane and sabotage it while we were looking after your mom... I don’t think I can stay here long.” She eyes him carefully. “Though, it would seem I have a guardian angel watching my back.”

He avoids eye contact with her sheepishly. “I… It’s a long story, Linda.”

“What else can you do?” She asks bluntly.

“...What are you going to do if I tell you?”

Linda plucks at a blade of tan grass between her knees. “I dunno. It’s kind of an unprecedented situation.”

“Linda,” Mark adopts a pained expression. “I’m not just… Some human interest story or juicy byline. I’m…  _ Different _ . I never wanted my powers, but I… Please don’t tell anyone else.”

“What else can you do?” She asks again.

Mark sighs, stepping back and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I… I’m strong. Strong enough to lift a tractor over my head with one hand. Fast enough to outrun a speeding car. You saw me fly… When those CRT guys shot at us, the bullets bounced off my skin. I can see deeper into the spectrums of light, hear and see things far away… That’s how I found you in the shipping facility. When I concentrate, beams of light shoot from my eyes and burn things… And I can blow freezing cold winds.”

“You said you didn’t want these powers… How did you get them?” Linda asks tonelessly. 

Mark shakes his head. “It’s a long story.”

“Okay, then why the hell have you been sitting out in the middle of a Kansas cornfield your entire life when you had superhuman powers?” This question came with a sharper tone, cold accusation dripping with disdain. 

Mark freezes in place, his anxiety deepening into dread. “I…”

“You… You... ?!” Linda rises, picking up a screwdriver from the ground and throwing it at him. He flinches involuntarily, disappearing from her view for a moment before reappearing a few feet away. “Do you have any idea the good you could have been doing all this time? Instead of hiding from the world, you could have been saving lives! Stopping groups like Menace! You could have been a hero this world desperately needs!”

“Please… Please stop…” Mark raises his hands plaintively. “I didn’t want to… I don’t know, I didn’t want the world to realize someone like me could exist. When I saw what my…  _ Situation _ ... Was doing to my family, after I lost my dad, I was barely holding on. I felt so lost, so alone… For years I just felt adrift. I didn’t feel like the world was ready for me. The real me.”

Linda chomps back a waspish retort, “I just don’t understand, Mark. If you have these amazing powers, why would you hide them? Why wouldn’t you help people?”

“...” Mark gestures helplessly. “I didn’t know I was supposed to. It never occurred to me that I had to try.”

“You never- Didn’t you want to be one of the good guys when you were a kid? Like Robin Hood or the Lone Ranger?” She seems almost at a loss, like she was seeing something alien for the very first time.

“Well, yeah? But isn’t that what every little kid does? It’s been a long time since I was a little kid.” He hesitates, confused by her line of questioning. “Should I have been helping people, Linda?”

Her eyes go wide and she blurts out, “YES! Absolutely yes! I don’t… Everyone has some idea of what doing the right thing is, and sometimes it’s not what’s…  _ Right… _ But they’ll still have the motivation and drive to see it made into a reality. It’s like you don’t even have the ambition to be anything.”

**_Your destiny is waiting for you._ **

Mark twitches, his jaw clamping shut as he hears the familiar voice of the machine echo in his mind. His destiny is waiting for him, yes. He couldn’t help but feel that the destiny the machine spoke of was not the same ambition that Linda spoke of. Her words hurt him somewhere deep inside, an accusation that he was uncaring, even… Selfish? Was he really obligated to help the world with his powers? Could he really have made a difference? Had he been wrong all this time? It was that same ambition that he had seen in Amy, in Shawshank, in all of these little people who were clawing their way towards… Purpose.

What is his purpose? What was his destiny? What was his ambition? Mark claws desperately inside his own soul to find the answer, but he finds only an emptiness that enrages and terrifies him more. Was this the machine’s doing? Had it robbed him of his ability to want more, to be more? To desire something of his own? What if he could only desire the destiny it wanted for him.

“Mark?” Linda’s voice cut through the spiraling anxiety, bringing him back to earth.

He opens his eyes to find he’s floating over a dozen feet off the ground, Linda backing away in fear and awe as power bleeds off of his skin. Reining in his emotions, Mark settles back down to the ground, raising his hands to assuage her concern. 

“...Sorry. I don’t really… I’m not good with that kind of thing.” Mark mumbles sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I don’t… Think of other people. I do, though.”

Linda exhales slowly, releasing tension from her shoulders. “You do, I’m sorry, Mark. You obviously care about Emil a lot, you were trying to be a good friend for him earlier today and last night, right?” She rubs the bruises where he almost strangled her to death. 

Mark perks up, his morose mood evaporating. While he can’t help but wince at the reminder of his violent actions, she was right. There was something that the machine hadn’t yet stolen from Mark, his deep friendship with Emil. “Linda… I want to do the right thing.” Mark says quietly, looking down at the Kansas soil beneath his feet. “I want to be a good person.”

She nods slowly, reaching out to touch his shoulder lightly. “I’d like to help you, Mark. Help you see how to use your powers the right way. The people you could help.”

Mark reaches up slowly to grab her wrist, squeezing it gently to affirm his acceptance. He saved her life for a reason, he feels. Perhaps she can show him what he has been missing all these years, barely hanging onto with his friendship with Emil. He can try to be whole again.

“But we can’t stay here,” Linda remarks after a moment, walking back to the plane. “I’ve got to get back to Cosmopolis and… Well, I really think you should come with me.” She runs a hand over the plane, frowning. “There’s really no way I can go back to the airport now, even with your powers, the CRT will be waiting for us…” 

Mark hesitates for a moment, then nods. He still has the lingering desire to stay put, locked in place by his lack of ambition or desire, but Linda’s recommendation outweighs such concerns. 

“What if you flew me to Cosmopolis?” She asks suddenly.

“Uh,” He blanches, considering the logistics of her request, “That wouldn’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Well… First off, even at my top speed it’d take hours to reach the city, it’s all the way on the east coast. You’d be pretty cold and uncomfortable, since at that speed the wind would be oppressive for any normal person. Not to mention having to be carried by me for several hours.” He lists off with a frown. “We’d be better off taking my truck.”

The reporter scoffs. “Your truck. It’ll take even longer to get to the city taking the roads, not to mention it would give whoever is pulling the strings at Burbank Industries a head start on preparing for my article.”

Mark shrugs, “Well, it’ll take a while to fly there at reduced speed so you can be comfortable. Not to mention we’ll be flying low to ground to avoid a radar ping, so if I hit any bugs or birds you’ll be in quite the mess.”

“...Does that happen a lot?” Linda makes a nauseated face.

“Uhhh… Well I don’t fly too often, y’know? But it’s happened.”

Linda sighs, plopping down on the grass beside the plane and leaning back against it. He shrugs apologetically in response, knowing that he wasn’t really helping. Time isn’t on their side here, the longer they stay in one place, the more time the CRT has to catch up with them. 

Mark clears his throat, “Uh, is there a particular reason we have to go back to your office in Cosmopolis to get the article written?”

“Well, for starters I didn’t bring my laptop with me,” She replies. “I also need to get these photos off my phone and archived, meet with my editor and discuss the story, prep with the legal team, and also there’s someone I want for you to meet.”

He blinks in surprise, “There is?”

“Yeah, he’s my contact in the government you could say. I met him a while back through my d- through my other business contacts and he feeds me tidbits of information now and again. He’s the one who tipped me off to the Burbank story to begin with.”

“Why do you want me to meet him?” Mark asks.

“He’ll probably know what the best route forward is for you.” Linda shrugs, “If you’re going to be helping people and taking down bad guys, he’s the sort of ally you want to have. You’ll like him.”

“When we get there at least.” He groans.

“Ugh, yeah.” Linda replies while bonking her head lightly against the plane. She’s quiet for a few moments before her eyes widen and she looks at Mark excitedly. “The plane!”

“...Yeah?” Mark replies cautiously.

“You can fly the plane!”

“Um, no.” He cocks his head to the side. “Even if it worked, I don’t know how to fly.”

Linda smacks her hand against her face, “No, genius. The plane doesn’t work, but it can still  _ fly _ . You can carry it to Cosmopolis with me inside! You can go at your top speed and I’ll still be comfortable and we can get there without losing time!”

“Ohhhhh…” Mark blushes in embarrassment. “Uh, yeah, sure. Climb aboard and I’ll… Y’know… Take it up and away?”

The reporter excitedly hops to her feet and opens the hatch on the rear of the plane. Mark hesitates, not sure when he should start lifting, but pretends he wasn’t trying to figure out how this should work when she returns carrying a headset.

“This will let us communicate via radio while we’re flying. They’re on a short-band wavelength that doesn’t require the plane’s engines to be on, so we should have no trouble.” She offers the headset to Mark, who puts it on and clicks the button to activate it. 

“Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3.” He says into the mic, glancing at the reporter.

Linda smiles at him in a puzzling way and pats him gently on the cheek. “Let me go put on my headset.” She replies, closing up the hatch and leaving Mark to stand there with a puzzled expression, lightly touching his cheekbone.

“Alright, Sim, I’m strapped in and ready to go, over.” Her voice crackles over the radio, breaking him out of his confused reverie. 

Mark twitches and nods, walking over to the plane. “R-right. This might be a bit bumpy at first.” He explains, kneeling down in front of the plane and pulling it forward onto his shoulders. He works to distribute the mass of the plane evenly across his back before closing his eyes and summoning the same weightless feeling as before, gently rising into the air with the plane resting in his grip. It surprises him how easy this task is, how light and ethereal the plane feels in his grasp. Within moments they’re hundreds of feet in the air, Cimarron shrinking beneath them.

“Great job!” Linda praises his feat. “Compass says we’re pointed southeast, so turn a little to the left.”

Mark complies, adjusting his angle until she tells him to stop. Pointing due east, Mark grits his teeth and surges forward into the unknown. It takes him little time to reach full speed, rocketing across the sky with Linda’s plane in tow. The reporter is talking in his ear, but Mark honestly isn’t paying attention, too caught up in the exhilarating rush of flight. This was maybe the best feeling in the world, and he couldn’t help but wonder why he never indulged more in it.

***

It is late afternoon as Mark soars towards the Cosmopolis skyline, his gaze drinking in the glittering towers, sprawling urban landscape, and expansive ocean beyond. For a country boy from Kansas, the city is like visiting a different country altogether. And the ocean! Cresting tides sweep outwards to the horizon, deep tones and shades of blue, green, and stormy greys. 

“Hey Sim, let’s keep a low profile,” Linda comments over the radio. “Do you see that forest on the south side of the Hudson? It’s a state park we can use to make a discreet entrance. There’s some meadows you can set the plane down in, I’ll have someone retrieve it later.”

Mark takes one last wistful look at the horizon before acknowledging her request and banking back down towards the forest. He quickly gets a lay of the land before descending into the midst of the canopy and foliage, settling back down on the ground. Stiff arms pop as he maneuvers the plane to the ground and once the load is off he walks around the clearing, rolling his shoulders and stretching aching muscles. The weight didn’t bother him, but he certainly didn’t enjoy holding the same position for over six hours. He scans the immediate area for any signs of people, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to worry about. 

“A picture-perfect landing, Mr. Milton.” Linda says as she pops open the hatch, descending down to the grass with a duffel bag and backpack in tow. “Hopefully no one noticed us set a plane down in the middle of Founder’s Park.”

“What now? Want me to fly you over to the city?” Mark asks.

“No, no. There’s a boat taxi service in a nearby town we can take to cross the river, and I could use a good walk after being cooped up in that plane all day.” She replies, tossing him the duffel bag. 

Mark shoulders the bag and follows her through the woods to a nearby foot path. They make quick progress out of the park, unimpeded by distractions or diversions. Once they get to the town Linda mentioned, she charters a taxi boat and starts the trip across the river to the city.

“We’ll rent a hotel room to stay in for now,” Linda explains as she takes a seat in the rocking ship.

Mark unsteadily walks across the deck to sit beside her, his gaze focused on the city. “You worried about something?”

“There could be a chance that someone is waiting for us at my apartment in town. I’d rather avoid a violent confrontation in my own home. Besides, the Daily Star will comp me for our stay, given the circumstances.” 

“Mm.” He nods, still looking at the city.

They’re quiet for a few moments, bobbing up and down with the boat as it pushes across the Hudson River. Linda looks at him curiously before asking, “Is there something you’re  _ worried _ about?”

Mark frowns, his mouth pulling into a tight line. “I’m just worried about Emil.” He refrains from mentioning the voicemail he left for his friend that morning, nor that Emil still hadn’t replied to it at all. Maybe he was just busy, but Mark was anxious of foul play affecting his best friend.

“He’ll be okay, Mark.” She pats his arm reassuringly.

Once they arrive on the other side of the river, Linda pays the taxi and leads Mark onto the streets of a neighborhood she affectionately refers to as “Hell’s Kitchen”. The name was less than appealing to Mark, but the area seemed pleasant enough regardless. It took only a few minutes for them to walk to a hotel Linda found using her phone, the pair reserving a two bed room near the top floor. 

“Finally!” Linda groans as they enter the small bedroom, throwing her backpack aside and collapsing on the bed. “I feel like I could sleep for a week…”

Mark smiles sympathetically, walking past her to the window to stare out at the other skyscrapers. “It’s hard to believe, but we’ve been going since 3 AM last night. I’m used to working the night shift, so I don’t even feel it.” He grips his phone in his pocket, apprehension twisting in his gut.

“Ughh, I’m used to it, doesn’t mean I like it.” She rolls on the bed before sitting up. “Okay, I desperately need a shower and a change of clothes. Once I’m done, I’ll call my contact and arrange a place to meet.”

“Sure.” Mark continues to smile pleasantly as she walks by and steps into the bathroom. He waits in place until he hears the shower going and the curtain pulled into place, then grabs a room key and sighs. “Sorry about this, Linda.” He murmurs under his breath before stepping out the door and heading to the elevators. Instead of heading back down to the lobby, Mark takes it to the top floor and then looks around until he finds a staircase. Going to the roof, he finds the door to get outside locked… But it doesn’t make for much of an obstacle as he rips the locks off the door and steps out onto the roof. 

The noise of the city was a constant cacophony to his sensitive ears, but he does his best to filter out the noise. He pulls out his phone and unlocks it, pulling up his maps app and searching for the location of Burbank Industry headquarters. Once he gets a pin on where he needs to go, Mark closes his eyes and summons the same feeling of weightless detachment. Floating into the air, Mark launches upwards from the roof, summiting the next highest tower in moments before rising above the city’s skyline altogether. The same euphoria fills his heart as he hangs in the sky before he returns to the business at hand, dropping down towards the skyscrapers and following his phone’s directions to reach the location of Burbank Industry. It was a tall building with a stylized “B.I.” On the side near the very top, the glowing “B” underlining a luxurious and expansive rooftop garden surrounding a glass-walled office space. 

Mark sets down on a cobblestone path, walking towards the office at a languid pace. This was likely a design choice Emil made, but Mark has to admit he was a little puzzled by his friend’s choice in outdoor decor. He certainly wouldn’t have expected a flower garden with bonsai plants and koi ponds. On the southeast corner there was a dedicated space for a helipad that broke up the eco-friendly aesthetic, but one has to observe some certain necessities, Mark guesses. When he approaches the office, sliding glass doors open silently, greeting Mark with a gust of cold air as he steps through the threshold into Emil’s private office. It was oddly laid-out, with a circular desk topped with multiple computers sitting in the middle of the office and four paintings hanging over it from the ceiling, facing outwards to the four glass walls. A spiral staircase on the north side of the room led down to the next floor, likely a reception area or perhaps a computer lab for Emil’s private work. Other works of art are scattered across the private office, sitting on pedestals or hanging from the ceiling by thin wires. It all seems random and mismatched to Mark, but he was no real connoisseur of art. Turning back to the desk, Mark walks around it and examines the four paintings. 

The first painting portrays a scene of violence and abuse; a child cowering before an angered parent who lashes out with closed fists. It is ugly and bleak, and fills Mark’s stomach with a sour sensation. The second painting portrays nature and urban development growing opposite to each other across a vertical plane. While skyscrapers rise to light, vines and flowers descend to darkness. Standing between these forces is a man, opening his face to reveal a blinding white light. The third painting portrays a moonlit night over what is clearly the Cosmopolis skyline. Silhouetted against the moon was a winged creature, indistinct in the level of detail but clearly some kind of bird of prey, perhaps an owl. The fourth and final painting depicts an island with some sort of white towers rising from it, but the image is blurry like the painter was staring at it through squinted eyes or from a half-remembered recollection. This painting was the only one to have a placard, designating it, “ _ Utopia _ ” by Mariko Yamamoto.

Mark drifts closer to the desk, examining the plethora of computers that Emil had at hand. They were all locked down and his desk was surprisingly neat apart from the technology splayed across the whole surface. Nothing like the old work desk Emil used back in Cimarron to develop his slap-dash inventions. His friend had certainly changed over the intervening years, becoming quite the neat-freak and art collector. 

His sensitive ears pick up a door closing downstairs and several voices speaking over each other as they approach the stairs. Mark looks around in panic, not sure how to properly explain why he was in the CEO and founder’s private office and decides to intensively examine one of the pieces of art, a marble bust of some dusty old Roman politician.

“I’d like to know why we-” A voice trails off as Emil and his entourage reach the top of the stairs, finding a random man curiously eyeing one of the busts. Mark, a master of subtlety, continues to examine the sculpture without blinking or glancing at the new group of people.

“...I’m sorry, can I help you?” Emil finally says, lowering his personal tablet slowly with an incredulous expression.

“Oh, don’t mind me, just admiring the piece here. Julius Caesar?” Mark remarks casually, leaning against the pedestal.

“...Pericles.” Emil corrects him, taking a step closer with a squint. “...Mark? Is that you?”

Mark grins, gesturing casually, “In the flesh.”

Emil blinks and then breaks out in a grin, striding forward to embrace his best friend. “What the hell are you doing here, dude?”

“Oh, you know, I was in town and thought I’d drop by.” 

“No, I mean, what the hell are you doing in my office?” Emil cracks, bopping Mark in the shoulder.

“Oh. Well.” Mark glances down, realizing he’s still wearing his Burbank security guard uniform, bullet holes and all. “When you’re wearing the uniform, people let you go pretty much wherever you want.”

“I see.” Emil gestures to his entourage of assistants and executives. “Out, all of you. I want to speak with my friend privately.” The bevy of underlings quickly scatter to follow his command, some shooting quizzical or dirty looks at Mark. As they leave, Emil opens a panel on his desk and presses a button inside. Across the room panels in the floor open and minimalist furniture expands upwards, including a bar with a host of bottles. 

“Care for a drink?” Emil asks, pulling out a crystal decanter half-filled with amber liquor and pouring a few fingers into a glass.

“Ah, I’m good.” Mark says sheepishly, trying to sit comfortably in a spindly chair. 

Emil shrugs and plugs up the decanter before sitting down behind his desk, taking a sip and sighing in satisfaction. “So what’s up, Mark? I’ve been trying to get you to come out to Cosmopolis for what, five years? And you just decide to show up out of the blue and hang out in my office?”

Mark sweats, not sure what to say. Perhaps he should just keep going with the direct approach. “Well, I thought… Er, well, I was…” He stammers a little before sighing. “Did you get my voicemail this morning? You never responded.”

Emil blinks in bewilderment. “Voicemail?”

“...Yeah? From this morning?”

The CEO pops open a drawer and pulls out a cell phone, cringing a little. “Ah, whoops. Sorry man, I was busy with meetings all day.” He taps a few buttons with his thumb, playing back the voicemail in front of Mark. His expression turns from curious, to incredulous, to deeply troubled by the time the voicemail is over. “So, I guess this isn’t really a social call, huh?”

“...No,” Mark admits.

Emil sighs, setting the phone down and leaning back in his chair, thinking for a moment. “So this has to do with why my COO called me at the crack of dawn saying something happened at the Cimarron plant? And why I’ve been in meetings all day with my executives, board of directors, PR and legal teams?”

At that moment, Mark’s phone begins to ring, but he ignores it. Likely it is Linda wondering where he has disappeared to. After ignoring the call, Mark glances back up at Emil. “Yeah, I was working last night. I saw the whole thing, I know who has been breaking into our facilities across the country.”

“You do?” Emil leans forward eagerly.

“It’s a reporter for the Daily Star, tracking rumors about… Illegal activities.” Mark explains. “I confronted her, and… Yeah, she was right on the money. Emil, I saw crates and crates of illegal weapons being kept at the Cimarron facility. Someone is using the company to traffic weapons across the country, maybe across the world!”

“...What?” Emil scowls, confused.

Mark leans forward, explaining what happened. “Those CRT guys your board made you hire - they’re in on it too! When they found us at the weapon cache they tried to kill us!” 

“Whoa, whoa, slow down. They were trying to kill you?” Emil demands, half-rising out of his chair.

“Absolutely,” Mark confirms with a resolute expression.

“...Shit.” Emil slumps back into his chair. He thinks for a few minutes before keying in a few codes into one of his laptops. “...I’ll be honest, I  _ thought _ something fishy was going on. I’ll call in my director of security and see if he’s a part of this conspiracy.”

“...You have to be careful, Emil.” Mark says hesitantly. “I came here to make sure you were safe. I don’t want for you to become collateral damage in whatever scheme they’re hatching… Whoever  _ they _ are.”

Emil smiles with gratitude, “I appreciate that Mark. This is why I wanted you as part of my staff here years ago, you’re the only person I know I can trust to have my back.” He rises from his chair. “I’ll convene a full investigation, starting immediately. You and me, we’re going to root this thing out and deal with it.”

“That’s amazing!” Mark jumps to his feet, finally feeling like he has a handle on the situation. “Where do we start?!”

The CEO chuckles and holds up a hand, “Calm down there, dude. Even with my authority, the gears turn slowly.” He stands and comes out of his circular desk, guiding Mark towards the stairs. “We need to bring all the relevant parties together, conduct an investigation, make inquiries, it’s a lot to do things the right way. But with your help, I know we can do it. While we wait for everyone to get pulled together, why don’t we take a tour of the HQ?”

“Oh, sure, that sounds good.” Mark says, following Emil while ignoring the continued buzzing from his phone. He’s a little hesitant at first, but Emil knows best how to handle this sort of situation. Together the two friends head down to Emil’s private elevator, descending into Burbank Industry HQ to see up close and personal how the company is run.


	6. More or Less

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark and Emil get reacquainted

#  Chapter 6

“-And don’t come back until you’ve rounded up everyone who was involved,” Emil instructs his head of security impatiently while Mark waits across the conference room. After leaving Emil’s spacious office, they rendezvoused with his top staff to initiate the investigation into the board and the Critical Response Team. Once the CEO finishes briefing his subordinates and outlining his wishes, he crosses the room with an apologetic smile.

“Thanks for waiting, have to make sure everyone understands the seriousness of the situation,” Emil explains, wrapping an arm around Mark’s shoulder while leading him to the door, “Now, let’s have some fun. While the company got most of its revenue from  _ Sweet Sweep _ and I’ve expanded to put together manufacturing and supply chains for other tech companies, I’ve stayed true to my passions. We’ve got five floors of pure applied science R&D here at HQ, creating the most bleeding edge tech we can dream up.” 

As they step into the elevator, Emil scratches his nose sheepishly, “Granted it means my paycheck is pretty measly, it was the only way to get the board to approve of my little pet projects, but it’s worth it, I think.”

“Doesn’t surprise me, I remember how you were living on cup noodles and flavorade packets through college just so you could have the fanciest toys,” Mark reminisces. 

“Fancy to you, maybe, that was all second-hand junk compared to the tech I get to play with these days!” Emil retorts, “And besides, if I didn’t have that stuff I wouldn’t have been able to write  _ Sweet Sweep _ and make all that money to reinvest into starting up the company. Would you believe I even had a Hollywood producers office contact me about buying the  _ movie rights  _ for that game?”

Mark frowns, confused, “It’s a game about matching up little candies, how do you make a movie out of that?”

“Beats the hell out of me, but I made a cool five million off of the film rights, with a rider for royalties.” He shrugs with a grin, leading Mark out of the elevator as the doors open. “Ding ding! 33rd floor! Welcome to my Shangri-La, my El Dorado.”

This floor had been heavily renovated from what Mark could tell, the ceiling gutted out to expand upwards into an open concept of glass-walled offices on the upper half of the floor looking down on a central playground of technological innovation. Around the lower half of the floor were spaces for relaxation, entertainment, and other sundry needs of the day to day office worker. Emil leads Mark right into the thick of it, where scientists, engineers, and programmers in casual wear design robotic limbs, advanced computational devices, cutting edge imaging and sensing hardware, and things Mark couldn’t even recognize the purpose of.

Emil moves forward to a central table where a bald scientist was tinkering on the anatomy of a humanoid robot, which was a tangle of cables, pneumatics, and electronics wrapped around a metal frame. “Mark, I’d like you to meet Andy Zou, a man with more PHDs than I can count.” He pats the scientist on his head before circling the table. “Andy, this is Mark, an old buddy of mine from back in Kansas. Why don’t you tell him what you’ve been working on?”

“I think I know a robot when I see one,” Mark says wryly while shaking Dr. Zou’s hand.

Zou laughs, shaking his head, “Ah, not a robot exactly. Or an android, which would be the technical term for a robot made to look like a male human. This is a drone meant to integrate with a human operator through virtual reality. Basically the idea is that while most terrestrial-based drones are durable and mobile, there are situations where they’re not going to be too effective, like trying to navigate the inside of a burning building quickly. An airborne drone would not do well either, as the hot air would disrupt the avionics.”

“You’re losing me, but ok,” Mark laughs, a little embarrassed. 

“Basically it’s meant to be piloted like a person would normally move so that we can mitigate danger to human operators.” Dr. Zou explains, “But it has functionality in other fields as well. Thanks to the work of one of my colleagues, Rebecca Foucalt, its synthetic muscle structure will allow these drones to lift and move objects several times the capabilities of even the strongest person.” His visible excitement is infectious, but he sighs, “Right now though I’m working on harmonizing the data uplinks so the processors aren’t overloaded on startup from all the inputs. It’s been an issue for months that I just can’t get nailed down.”

Emil shrugs, “I’ve even taken a crack at it up in my personal lab, but I don’t think I could make much more progress than this genius here,” He claps Zou on the shoulder. “Anyhow, remotely-piloted humanoid drones are cool, but you know what’s cooler?” 

The inventor guides his best friend across the floor to another station where a pair of twins were tinkering on some sort of thruster. “Juan and Jillian Cortez, sniped them out from under Macrotech right out of college, and I’m glad I did! These kids are wunderkinds!”

“We’re only four years younger than you, sir,” Jillian reminds Emil coldly as she adjusts the burn on the thruster. 

Emil laughs anyways, waving her off, “It’s not the years, kid, it’s the mileage. Anyhow, these two are working on a new type of thruster based off of Zero Matter.”

Mark lifts an eyebrow, “Zero Matter? Never heard of it.”

“Few would have,” Juan mutters.

“It’s a transdimensional element that appears for very, very brief windows,” Emil explains. “A fella over in Switzerland wrote a predictive algorithm for determining where these appearances might occur, but the margin of error is extremely high. I spent a small fortune just tracking down where it might appear, and then containing it and getting it here was a  _ large _ fortune.”

“I… See.” Mark blinks slowly, moving to examine a transparent cylinder that contains a roiling mass of almost pure darkness. Shifting through his different fields of vision, he is surprised to find that this Zero Matter seems to absorb all forms of energy it comes into contact with, which then mysteriously becomes part of its power output in a wavelength Mark couldn’t even track. This stuff was truly extradimensional, its fundamental waves moving and shifting in and out of reality as Mark could perceive it. 

“You okay there, bud? You’re not going to get much out of watching that stuff, it’s basically imperceptible to the human eye except from just looking dark,” Emil chuckles.

“Er, yeah.” Mark backs away, realizing his mistake. “Say, is that a juice bar?” He asks, pointing off to the surrounding relaxation area away from the lab space.

“Uhh yeah, you thirsty, bud?” Emil replies.

“Parched,” Mark confirms and heads off to the bar, where there were almost a dozen different juices being refreshed in drink dispensers. “What’s… ‘Guava’?” 

“You’ve never had Guava?” Emil balks. “It’s delicious, you’ve gotta try it!”

Juan rolls his eyes as he retrieves a screwdriver, muttering, “ _ Gringos _ .” 

***

Two hours and three floors later, and Mark was beginning to realize there was a very human limit to his capacity to put up with Emil’s seemingly boundless enthusiasm for his company’s research and development. “Time out, time out,” Mark laughs, flopping into a couch in the relaxation zone. “I’ve gotta get a breather, my brain is spinning from all this technobabble.”

“You just gotta recharge, eat a little brain food.” Emil laughs, sitting opposite him and pressing a button on his earpiece. “Alicia? It’s Emil. Can we get a plate of canapes brought up to the 38th floor? Thanks!” 

Mark gives his friend a strong side-eye. “What are canapes?”

“They’re like an hors d’oeuvre.”

“The hell is an orderv?”

Emil covers his face and gives a despondent sigh, “For a moment I forgot how country you truly are, Mark.”

“Hey, yesterday before all this shit went down I ate Salisbury steak out of a plastic tray, I was happy with my life.” 

“You were happy microwaving your dinners?” Came a skeptical reply.

“Things were simple. It might not be the ideal life, but it was my life.” Mark huffs, staring at the ceiling. “You might not like it, but Cimarron was my home, warts and all.”

“...Right, sorry.” Emil leans back on his sofa while loosening his tie. “I guess when I think of home, I usually only remember the bad stuff.”

“Then why did you set up the shipping plant there? Wouldn’t you… I dunno, want to avoid the bad stuff? If you don’t like home so much, why bother?”

“...Things don’t change if you ignore them, Mark. Yeah, I could have just written off that town and gone my own way, it’d have been easy.” Emil’s expression grows distant, “But by pumping a little bit of cash into that town, maybe some kid doesn’t grow up with a deadbeat dad who drinks too much and hits his wife. Maybe that kid can go to school and feel like he has a future, go to church and feel like he’s not just playing pretend. Maybe that kid can go to bed without praying for a miracle to save him.”

Mark glances at his best friend, eyeing him for a long moment. “Sounds like you want to be a hero.”

Emil smiles a little bitterly. “If spending money actually made things change in a real way, maybe I would feel like a hero. But no matter how high I climb, Mark, I keep finding that it doesn’t matter how determined you are, how much money you have, or how pure your intentions… The world simply won’t allow people to create real change.”

“Maybe it’s not our place to be the heroes…” Mark murmurs. “Or maybe the problems are just too big for us, too complicated. Some things you just have to leave to faith.”

Emil snorts, “I didn’t take you for a religious man these days, buddy.”

“I can’t say that I am, just not sure all these things are really in our power to change at all,” Mark grunts. “I try not to think about it too much.”

“So, complacency is the way to go? Seems a bit nihilistic.”

“Nihi- What?” 

“Never mind. I do agree though, the problems do become… Complicated,” Emil muses. “Son of a bitch that he was, I can’t hate my father too much because how much of the blame did he truly shoulder? Yeah, he made the choice to hit his own family, drink like a fish until it killed him, and generally act like a total bastard… But I didn’t know then that he was such a miserable cuss because of the headaches. Took a bad hit to the head on the job, didn’t see a cent for his troubles and wasn’t able to sue the folks who hired him. No healthcare, couldn’t afford painkillers or even the ability to figure out what the hell was wrong. For all we know, it could have been brain damage that turned him into what he was.” 

He shrugs, leaning to rest his elbows on his knees. “Even so, perhaps he was lucky. The Midwest is pumped to the gills with painkillers and has some of the highest rates of opioid abuse in the country, but most people just don’t want to think about it, I guess. It’s just a bunch of farmers, hicks, and rednecks out that way anyhow.”

“You were just making fun of me for not knowing what that word was. Ord Dwarves, or whatever.”

“Hors D’oeuvres.” 

“ _ Whatever _ .”

“I make fun because I’m from there, Mark. It’s my heritage too, even if I’m running from it.”

“Hmph.”

The two sat in silence for few minutes, not sure where to take the heavy conversation from there. Talking about home has clearly put Emil in a dour mood, and Mark was frankly ready for his friend to hop off the soap box. 

“...They’re appetizers,” Emil says after the long pause.

“Hm?” Mark sits up, frowning. 

“Hors D’oeurves, it’s just a fancy French term for appetizers.”

“Oh.” The farmboy nods slowly. “And… What are canapes, exactly?”

“Ummm, basically it’s like fancy cheese, salami, maybe fruit or veggies, and maybe a spread? And it’s on crackers, or little slices of bread.” Emil explains. 

“So like those little cracker and cheese platters the church ladies would bring to Sunday potlucks?” Mark raises an eyebrow. 

“Uhh, I guess so,” Emil replies with a frown. “Y’know, when I think about it, that kinda reminds me of an article I read in the  _ New Cosmopolitan _ about food gentrification.”

Mark holds a hand up with a deadpan expression. “I am entirely certain I don’t want to know, man.”

Emil shrugs in response, glancing over his shoulder to see a food service worker from the cafeteria approaching with a platter of Canapes and a bottle of white wine. He thanks the server quietly and personally uncorks and pours the white wine while Mark examines a canape in his hand. It was a cracker with a significant amount of seeds baked into it, with a white spread topped with some sort of pinkish cured meat and little flecks of honey, it seems. 

“Well, what should we toast to?” Emil asks, handing a glass of wine to Mark.

“How about the success of the investigation?” He suggests in turn.

Emil considers this, and raises his glass, “To the truth, whatever it may be.”

Mark clinks his glass against Emil’s and takes a slow sip of wine. Finally looking around the lab on the 38th floor, his curiosity gets the better of him as he picks up a canape and heads over to a large, cylindrical machine on the edge of the large workspace. Blue lights strobe softly up the length of the machine, which hums gently.

“So what’s this?” Mark asks around a mouthful of his appetizer.

Emil looks over for a moment and then crosses the space to stand beside it. “A failed experiment, I’m afraid.” He reaches out to touch the machine wistfully. “The pod was meant to be a… Prototype of sorts for transdimensional travel. Unfortunately all it did was reduce its inventor to ash.”

“...You’re not joking.” Mark asks incredulously.

Emil shakes his head. “Afraid not. Dr. Rosenbaum was a genius, but… Troubled. He said there were creatures communicating to him in his dreams, that they told him to build the machine and find them. I feel it was likely a case of undiagnosed schizophrenia.” He steps away to look at another device. “This is more interesting, I helped develop this to train me in boxing: the device does predictive analysis based on your movements and forces you to constantly adapt your strategy.”

Mark stares at the grim, unintended crematorium for a moment before glancing at Emil, who was distracted with boxing against the machine he was standing at. As fun as this all had been… There was still work to be done, and Mark couldn’t shirk his responsibility to find who was to blame for Menace infiltrating the company. Satisfied that his best friend wasn’t paying attention, Mark closes his eyes and opens his sense to the world around him, waiting and listening for something, anything.

_ It was a cacophony of voices, louder than Cimarron ever was. An entire city, speaking at once, a babbling torrent that almost made him nauseous… But he wasn’t too inexperienced. _

Mark filters out the worst of the noise, searching…

_ “Confirmed.” _

A voice, male, efficient and cold. Nearby as well.

_ “Target has arrived at the corner of 42nd St. and 1st Avenue.” _

_ “Roger that.” _

A dialogue? Who was the target? Why were they monitoring someone? The voices… They were beneath him, but one was elsewhere. Radioing in, but he could hear them speak  _ into _ the radio and  _ through _ the receiver far below his feet. 

_ “Target has made contact with Director Thompson outside a nearby coffee shop in the Millenium Hotel.” _

_ “Repeat, I have eyes on contact between Director Thompson and Linda Lassiter.” _

_ “Acknowledged.” _

A chill runs down Mark’s spine as he glances at Emil, still obliviously boxing with the machine he helped invent - the infiltrators were in the building, using his resources, and watching Linda and… Someone else?

_ “Watch, you are being given a priority command: eliminate the target and Director Thompson. This opportunity is too good to pass up.” _

_ “Roger that, proceeding with elimination.” _

Mark didn’t need to hear another word. The world almost stood still around him as he set his wine glass aside and dashed to the door at superspeed, abandoning the lab to go save Linda from certain death. 

Emil turns around from the boxing machine as the wineglass rattles on its base before coming to a rest. “...Mark?” He asks curiously, looking around for his friend before a sucker punch from the boxing machine knocks him out cold.

***

Mark is certain he has never gone this fast before. People, cars, buses, buildings all pass by in a blur as he races to save Linda and her friend from the assassins of Menace. He’s never had a reason before to go this fast, and he can feel the heat ripple across his skin and singe his clothes. It doesn’t matter, though. The only thing that matters is that today, for the second time, he is going to save Linda’s life.

He rounds a corner onto 42nd st., racing down its length until he can see the United Nations building standing by the East River. Where are they? How does Menace plan to kill them? He races forward until finally he spots Linda, standing on the sidewalk next to a bearded man who could only be four feet tall at most, the two in rapt conversation. Neither seems to notice a taxi has jumped the curb, speeding to hit Linda in the back with only a few feet between its bumper and her spine. Mark doesn’t bother to think about his actions, leaping in between her and the taxi while doing his best to gently push her back to avoid any collateral damage. 

Linda is shoved into Director Thompson suddenly, the two bowling over and hitting the sidewalk as a tremendous crash is heard behind her. People shout and scream in alarm, shattered glass and pieces of plastic and rubber scatter down on her back, causing her to push her face into Thompson’s chest to avoid any serious injury. When she looks up, she sees Mark standing resolutely with a taxi’s front end wrapped around him, tearing open his singed clothing to reveal unblemished skin beneath. He isn’t even scratched. Mark holds the driver by the neck, his face a mask of quiet rage. 

“M-Mark?” Linda asks, bewildered for a moment, but only a moment. “Mark, where the  _ hell _ have you been?!”

“I-” He blinks in surprise and the titanic fury ebbs as he looks more like a chastened dog. “Um, sorry, I… I had to…”

“Ghkk…” The driver of the taxi gasps for air, blood bubbling out of his mouth, torn throat, and shattered chest. He had been launched forward in the crash, shattering his spine, pelvis, and legs across the dashboard and crushing his face and neck as he burst through the windshield. 

“Who are you working for?” Mark asks coldly, snapping his attention back to the mortally injured man, but his interrogation is futile. The light leaves the assassin’s eyes and he falls limp in Mark’s hand. 

Thompson carefully extricates himself from underneath Linda and looks up at Mark Milton for the first time as the young man carefully pulls himself out of the wreckage of the runaway taxi he had stopped with only his body. Mark stoops to help Linda to her feet and nods to Thompson in greeting as a crowd slowly forms around the three, murmuring in shock, confusion, and awe.

_ “Watch 1 has failed. Some form of interference. Not sure what just happened out there.” _

_ “Roger. Make a second attempt. We’re not going to get another shot at this.” _

Mark stiffens and grabs Linda by the waist and lifts Thompson up with an arm around his shoulders. “Hang on, more are coming. We need to get out of here.” 

“Wait, wait, hang on, we  _ need _ to- AIIIIE!” Linda screeches in shock as Mark launches into the air, flying high above the skyscrapers as his two passengers unleashed terrorized screams. Scanning the surrounding area, Mark chooses a building at random and soars over, gently lowering the two onto the roof of the skyscraper. Both Linda and Thompson were on the verge of hyperventilating, gasping for air.

“What the  _ HELL _ , MARK?!” Linda finally chokes out, about ready to punch him even if she rationally knew he probably wouldn’t even feel it.

“I think we all just need to… Need to calm down,” Director Thompson unsteadily rises to his feet while straightening his tie. “You must be Mark Milton.”

“Er… Yeah.” Mark sheepishly scratches the back of his head before offering to shake Thompson’s hand. “You’re Linda’s contact?”

“Something like that, I suppose you could say.” The dwarfish man responds, shaking Mark’s hand delicately. “I’m Director Thomas Thompson, Deputy Chief of the United Nations’ Agency of Defense, Espionage, Containment, and Kinetic Operations.”

Mark’s eyebrow quirks upward. “Thomas Thompson.”

“My mother wasn’t terribly imaginative. My friends call me Tom Thumb.” 

Mark can barely stifle a chuckle, covering his mouth with one hand before Linda comes alongside him, pointing a finger in his face. “Where the hell were you, Mark? You vanished for over two hours, do you have any idea how frantic I’ve been?”

“She really was pissed off.” Tom nods sagely.

“S-sorry.” Mark holds up his hands carefully. “I just… I needed to go talk to someone. To… Emil.”

“...” Linda’s eyes go wide, absolute livid fury making her finger tremble.

“I… Um… We had a good… Talk?” Mark stutters, glancing at Tom who can only smile in response at how screwed Mark is.

“WHY THE  _ HELL _ WOULD YOU GO TALK TO  _ EMIL BURBANK _ ?!” 

“Linda, he’s my friend, you know that. You know I don’t think he could ever be responsible for Menace infiltrating the company.” Mark says quietly, chastened but determined.

Linda exhales slowly and rubs her forehead. “You… You have to realize how this could impact my story. And even if he’s not responsible, you’re putting him at risk by telling him!”

That had not occurred to Mark, and the color drains from his face. “Oh god, I have to go get him-”

“No!” Linda grabs his wrist, holding him tight. “No, you’ve done enough today. It’s time to take a step back and reassess the situation. Things have changed. This is bigger than you, or Emil, or his company, even my story.”

“She’s right, I’m afraid.” Tom stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Your existence is now a classified matter and there’s frankly a lot we need to learn about you, Mark. Your powers, what you do with them… It’s something that bears scrutiny.”

“...” Mark sighs, his shoulders dropping. “So… Now what? What am I supposed to do?”

“Great question,” Tom grins, “Before I met with Linda, I requisitioned space and materials at a nearby US Air Force base for us to hunker down. We’ll get to know Mark Milton a little better, Linda can write her story, and we can test your capabilities somewhere far from civilians and where Menace can’t reach.”

“...And Emil?”

Tom pats Mark on the forearm. “We’ll keep an eye on him, make sure he’s keeping his nose clean. If we think he’s in danger, we’ll extract him immediately.”

“Mark… This is for the best. How many people saw you down there stop that taxi? How do you think Menace is going to react after what they just saw you do?” Linda asks. “The best thing we can do right now is go to ground and figure out what we know for certain.”

“...Alright.” He sags a little before reaching to pick them back up.

“NO!” Tom jumps back.

“ _ Hell _ no!” Linda throws up her hands. “We’re not doing that again!”

“...You didn’t like flying?” Mark seems a little hurt. 

“Not like that!” Linda turns on her heel, marching towards the stair access. “Come on, Sim, we’re doing this like every other mere mortal!”

Tom chuckles, following along behind Linda. Mark pauses for a moment to glance back at the Burbank Industries tower before trudging off to take the stairs.


End file.
